faithfully related the story of their children's fatal love, the part he
took in promoting their marriage, in the hope in that union to end the
long quarrels between their families: how Romeo, there dead, was husband
to Juliet; and Juliet, there dead, was Romeo's faithful wife; how before
he could find a fit opportunity to divulge their marriage, another match
was projected for Juliet, who, to avoid the crime of a second marriage,
swallowed the sleeping draught (as he advised), and all thought her
dead; how meantime he wrote to Romeo, to come and take her thence when
the force of the potion should cease, and by what unfortunate
miscarriage of the messenger the letters never reached Romeo: further
than this the friar could not follow the story, nor knew more than that
coming himself, to deliver Juliet from that place of death, he found the
Count Paris and Romeo slain. The remainder of the transactions was
supplied by the narration of the page who had seen Paris and Romeo
fight, and by the servant who came with Romeo from Verona, to whom this
faithful lover had given letters to be delivered to his father in the
event of his death, which made good the friar's words, confessing his
marriage with Juliet, imploring the forgiveness of his parents,
acknowledging the buying of the poison of the poor apothecary, and his
intent in coming to the monument, to die, and lie with Juliet. All these
circumstances agreed together to clear the friar from any hand he could
be supposed to have in these complicated slaughters, further than as the
unintended consequences of his own well meant, yet too artificial and
subtle contrivances.
And the prince, turning to these old lords, Montague and Capulet,
rebuked them for their brutal and irrational enmities, and showed them
what a scourge Heaven had laid upon such offences, that it had found
means even through the love of their children to punish their unnatural
hate.
And these old rivals, no longer enemies, agreed to bury their long
strife in their children's graves; and Lord Capulet requested Lord
Montague to give him his hand, calling him by the name of brother, as if
in acknowledgment of the union of their families, by the marriage of the
young Capulet and Montague; and saying that Lord Montague's hand (in
token of reconcilement) was all he demanded for his daughter's jointure:
but Lord Montague said he would give him more, for he would raise her a
statue of pure gold, that while Verona kept its name, no figure should
be so esteemed for its richness and workmanship as that of the true and
faithful Juliet. And Lord Capulet in return said that he would raise
another statue to Romeo. So did these poor old lords, when it was too
late, strive to outgo each other in mutual courtesies: while so deadly
had been their rage and enmity in past times, that nothing but the
fearful overthrow of their children (poor sacrifices to their quarrels
and dissensions) could remove the rooted hates and jealousies of the
noble families.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK
Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, becoming a widow by the sudden death of King
Hamlet, in less than two months after his death married his brother
Claudius, which was noted by all people at the time for a strange act of
indiscretion, or unfeelingness, or worse: for this Claudius did no ways
resemble her late husband in the qualities of his person or his mind,
but was as contemptible in outward appearance, as he was base and
unworthy in disposition; and suspicions did not fail to arise in the
minds of some, that he had privately made away with his brother, the
late king, with the view of marrying his widow, and ascending the throne
of Denmark, to the exclusion of young Hamlet, the son of the buried
king, and lawful successor to the throne.
But upon no one did this unadvised action of the queen make such
impression as upon this young prince, who loved and venerated the memory
of his dead father almost to idolatry, and being of a nice sense of
honour, and a most exquisite practiser of propriety himself, did sorely
take to heart this unworthy conduct of his mother Gertrude: insomuch
that, between grief for his father's death and shame for his mother's
marriage, this young prince was overclouded with a deep melancholy, and
lost all his mirth and all his good looks; all his customary pleasure in
books forsook him, his princely exercises and sports, proper to his
youth, were no longer acceptable; he grew weary of the world, which
seemed to him an unweeded garden, where all the wholesome flowers were
choked up, and nothing but weeds could thrive. Not that the prospect of
exclusion from the throne, his lawful inheritance, weighed so much upon
his spirits, though that to a young and high-minded prince was a bitter
wound and a sore indignity; but what so galled him, and took away all
his cheerful spirits, was, that his mother had shown herself so
forgetful to his father's memory: and such a father! who had been to her
so loving and so gentle a husband! and then she always appeared as
loving and obedient a wife to him, and would hang upon him as if her
affection grew to him: and now within two months, or as it seemed to
young Hamlet, less than two months, she had married again, married his
uncle, her dear husband's brother, in itself a highly improper and
unlawful marriage, from the nearness of relationship, but made much more
so by the indecent haste with which it was concluded, and the unkingly
character of the man whom she had chosen to be the partner of her throne
and bed. This it was, which more than the loss of ten kingdoms, dashed
the spirits and brought a cloud over the mind of this honourable young
prince.
In vain was all that his mother Gertrude or the king could do to
contrive to divert him; he still appeared in court in a suit of deep
black, as mourning for the king his father's death, which mode of dress
he had never laid aside, not even in compliment to his mother upon the
day she was married, nor could he be brought to join in any of the
festivities or rejoicings of that (as appeared to him) disgraceful day.
What mostly troubled him was an uncertainty about the manner of his
father's death. It was given out by Claudius that a serpent had stung
him; but young Hamlet had shrewd suspicions that Claudius himself was
the serpent; in plain English, that he had murdered him for his crown,
and that the serpent who stung his father did now sit on the throne.
How far he was right in this conjecture, and what he ought to think of
his mother, how far she was privy to this murder, and whether by her
consent or knowledge, or without, it came to pass, were the doubts which
continually harassed and distracted him.
A rumour had reached the ear of young Hamlet, that an apparition,
exactly resembling the dead king his father, had been seen by the
soldiers upon watch, on the platform before the palace at midnight, for
two or three nights successively. The figure came constantly clad in the
same suit of armour, from head to foot, which the dead king was known to
have worn: and they who saw it (Hamlet's bosom friend Horatio was one)
agreed in their testimony as to the time and manner of its appearance:
that it came just as the clock struck twelve; that it looked pale, with
a face more of sorrow than of anger; that its beard was grisly, and the
colour a _sable silvered_, as they had seen it in his lifetime: that it
made no answer when they spoke to it; yet once they thought it lifted up
its head, and addressed itself to motion, as if it were about to speak;
but in that moment the morning cock crew, and it shrunk in haste away,
and vanished out of their sight.
The young prince, strangely amazed at their relation, which was too
consistent and agreeing with itself to disbelieve, concluded that it was
his father's ghost which they had seen, and determined to take his watch
with the soldiers that night, that he might have a chance of seeing it;
for he reasoned with himself, that such an appearance did not come for
nothing, but that the ghost had something to impart, and though it had
been silent hitherto, yet it would speak to him. And he waited with
impatience for the coming of night.
When night came he took his stand with Horatio, and Marcellus, one of
the guard, upon the platform, where this apparition was accustomed to
walk: and it being a cold night, and the air unusually raw and nipping,
Hamlet and Horatio and their companion fell into some talk about the
coldness of the night, which was suddenly broken off by Horatio
announcing that the ghost was coming.
At the sight of his father's spirit, Hamlet was struck with a sudden
surprise and fear. He at first called upon the angels and heavenly
ministers to defend them, for he knew not whether it were a good spirit
or bad; whether it came for good or evil: but he gradually assumed more
courage; and his father (as it seemed to him) looked upon him so
piteously, and as it were desiring to have conversation with him, and
did in all respects appear so like himself as he was when he lived, that
Hamlet could not help addressing him: he called him by his name, Hamlet,
King, Father! and conjured him that he would tell the reason why he had
left his grave, where they had seen him quietly bestowed, to come again
and visit the earth and the moonlight: and besought him that he would
let them know if there was anything which they could do to give peace to
his spirit. And the ghost beckoned to Hamlet, that he should go with him
to some more removed place, where they might be alone; and Horatio and
Marcellus would have dissuaded the young prince from following it, for
they feared lest it should be some evil spirit, who would tempt him to
the the neighbouring sea, or to the top of some dreadful cliff, and
there put on some horrible shape which might deprive the prince of his
reason. But their counsels and entreaties could not alter Hamlet's
determination, who cared too little about life to fear the losing of
it; and as to his soul, he said, what could the spirit do to that, being
a thing immortal as itself? And he felt as hardy as a lion, and bursting
from them, who did all they could to hold him, he followed whithersoever
the spirit led him.
And when they were alone together, the spirit broke silence, and told
him that he was the ghost of Hamlet, his father, who had been cruelly
murdered, and he told the manner of it; that it was done by his own
brother Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, as Hamlet had already but too much
suspected, for the hope of succeeding to his bed and crown. That as he
was sleeping in his garden, his custom always in the afternoon, his
treasonous brother stole upon him in his sleep, and poured the juice of
poisonous henbane into his ears, which has such an antipathy to the life
of man, that swift as quicksilver it courses through all the veins of
the body, baking up the blood, and spreading a crustlike leprosy all
over the skin: thus sleeping, by a brother's hand he was cut off at once
from his crown, his queen, and his life: and he adjured Hamlet, if he
did ever his dear father love, that he would revenge his foul murder.
And the ghost lamented to his son, that his mother should so fall off
from virtue, as to prove false to the wedded love of her first husband,
and to marry his murderer; but he cautioned Hamlet, howsoever he
proceeded in his revenge against his wicked uncle, by no means to act
any violence against the person of his mother, but to leave her to
heaven, and to the stings and thorns of conscience. And Hamlet promised
to observe the ghost's direction in all things, and the ghost vanished.
And when Hamlet was left alone, he took up a solemn resolution, that all
he had in his memory, all that he had ever learned by books or
observation, should be instantly forgotten by him, and nothing live in
his brain but the memory of what the ghost had told him, and enjoined
him to do. And Hamlet related the particulars of the conversation which
had passed to none but his dear friend Horatio; and he enjoined both to
him and Marcellus the strictest secrecy as to what they had seen that
night.
The terror which the sight of the ghost had left upon the senses of
Hamlet, he being weak and dispirited before, almost unhinged his mind,
and drove him beside his reason. And he, fearing that it would continue
to have this effect, which might subject him to observation, and set his
uncle upon his guard, if he suspected that he was meditating anything
against him, or that Hamlet really knew more of his father's death than
he professed, took up a strange resolution, from that time to
counterfeit as if he were really and truly mad; thinking that he would
be less an object of suspicion when his uncle should believe him
incapable of any serious project, and that his real perturbation of mind
would be best covered and pass concealed under a disguise of pretended
lunacy.
From this time Hamlet affected a certain wildness and strangeness in his
apparel, his speech, and behaviour, and did so excellently counterfeit
the madman, that the king and queen were both deceived, and not thinking
his grief for his father's death a sufficient cause to produce such a
distemper, for they knew not of the appearance of the ghost, they
concluded that his malady was love, and they thought they had found out
the object.
[Illustration: TO THIS BROOK OPHELIA CAME]
Before Hamlet fell into the melancholy way which has been related, he
had dearly loved a fair maid called Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius,
the king's chief counsellor in affairs of state. He had sent her letters
and rings, and made many tenders of his affection to her, and importuned
her with love in honourable fashion: and she had given belief to his
vows and importunities. But the melancholy which he fell into latterly
had made him neglect her, and from the time he conceived the project of
counterfeiting madness, he affected to treat her with unkindness, and a
sort of rudeness: but she, good lady, rather than reproach him with
being false to her, persuaded herself that it was nothing but the
disease in his mind, and no settled unkindness, which had made him less
observant of her than formerly; and she compared the faculties of his
once noble mind and excellent understanding, impaired as they were with
the deep melancholy that oppressed him, to sweet bells which in
themselves are capable of most exquisite music, but when jangled out of
tune, or rudely handled, produce only a harsh and unpleasing sound.
Though the rough business which Hamlet had in hand, the revenging of his
father's death upon his murderer, did not suit with the playful state of
courtship, or admit of the society of so idle a passion as love now
seemed to him, yet it could not hinder but that soft thoughts of his
Ophelia would come between, and in one of these moments, when he thought
that his treatment of this gentle lady had been unreasonably harsh, he
wrote her a letter full of wild starts of passion, and in extravagant
terms, such as agreed with his supposed madness, but mixed with some
gentle touches of affection, which could not but show to this honoured
lady that a deep love for her yet lay at the bottom of his heart. He
bade her to doubt the stars were fire, and to doubt that the sun did
move, to doubt truth to be a liar, but never to doubt that he loved;
with more of such extravagant phrases. This letter Ophelia dutifully
showed to her father, and the old man thought himself bound to
communicate it to the king and queen, who from that time supposed that
the true cause of Hamlet's madness was love. And the queen wished that
the good beauties of Ophelia might be the happy cause of his wildness,
for so she hoped that her virtues might happily restore him to his
accustomed way again, to both their honours.
But Hamlet's malady lay deeper than she supposed, or than could be so
cured. His father's ghost, which he had seen, still haunted his
imagination, and the sacred injunction to revenge his murder gave him no
rest till it was accomplished. Every hour of delay seemed to him a sin,
and a violation of his father's commands. Yet how to compass the death
of the king, surrounded as he constantly was with his guards, was no
easy matter. Or if it had been, the presence of the queen, Hamlet's
mother, who was generally with the king, was a restraint upon his
purpose, which he could not break through. Besides, the very
circumstance that the usurper was his mother's husband filled him with
some remorse, and still blunted the edge of his purpose. The mere act of
putting a fellow-creature to death was in itself odious and terrible to
a disposition naturally so gentle as Hamlet's was. His very melancholy,
and the dejection of spirits he had so long been in, produced an
irresoluteness and wavering of purpose, which kept him from proceeding
to extremities. Moreover, he could not help having some scruples upon
his mind, whether the spirit which he had seen was indeed his father, or
whether it might not be the devil, who he had heard has power to take
any form he pleases, and who might have assumed his father's shape only
to take advantage of his weakness and his melancholy, to drive him to
the doing of so desperate an act as murder. And he determined that he
would have more certain grounds to go upon than a vision, or apparition,
which might be a delusion.
While he was in this irresolute mind there came to the court certain
players, in whom Hamlet formerly used to take delight, and particularly
to hear one of them speak a tragical speech, describing the death of old
Priam, King of Troy, with the grief of Hecuba his queen. Hamlet welcomed
his old friends, the players, and remembering how that speech had
formerly given him pleasure, requested the player to repeat it; which he
did in so lively a manner, setting forth the cruel murder of the feeble
old king, with the destruction of his people and city by fire, and the
mad grief of the old queen, running barefoot up and down the palace,
with a poor clout upon that head where a crown had been, and with
nothing but a blanket upon her loins, snatched up in haste, where she
had worn a royal robe; that not only it drew tears from all that stood
by, who thought they saw the real scene, so lively was it represented,
but even the player himself delivered it with a broken voice and real
tears. This put Hamlet upon thinking, if that player could so work
himself up to passion by a mere fictitious speech, to weep for one that
he had never seen, for Hecuba, that had been dead so many hundred years,
how dull was he, who having a real motive and cue for passion, a real
king and a dear father murdered, was yet so little moved, that his
revenge all this while had seemed to have slept in dull and muddy
forgetfulness! and while he meditated on actors and acting, and the
powerful effects which a good play, represented to the life, has upon
the spectator, he remembered the instance of some murderer, who seeing a
murder on the stage, was by the mere force of the scene and resemblance
of circumstances so affected, that on the spot he confessed the crime
which he had committed. And he determined that these players should play
something like the murder of his father before his uncle, and he would
watch narrowly what effect it might have upon him, and from his looks he
would be able to gather with more certainty if he were the murderer or
not. To this effect he ordered a play to be prepared, to the
representation of which he invited the king and queen.
The story of the play was of a murder done in Vienna upon a duke. The
duke's name was Gonzago, his wife Baptista. The play showed how one
Lucianus, a near relation to the duke, poisoned him in his garden for
his estate, and how the murderer in a short time after got the love of
Gonzago's wife.
At the representation of this play, the king, who did not know the trap
which was laid for him, was present, with his queen and the whole court:
Hamlet sitting attentively near him to observe his looks. The play began
with a conversation between Gonzago and his wife, in which the lady
made many protestations of love, and of never marrying a second husband,
if she should outlive Gonzago; wishing she might be accursed if she ever
took a second husband, and adding that no woman did so, but those wicked
women who kill their first husbands. Hamlet observed the king his uncle
change colour at this expression, and that it was as bad as wormwood
both to him and to the queen. But when Lucianus, according to the story,
came to poison Gonzago sleeping in the garden, the strong resemblance
which it bore to his own wicked act upon the late king, his brother,
whom he had poisoned in his garden, so struck upon the conscience of
this usurper, that he was unable to sit out the rest of the play, but on
a sudden calling for lights to his chamber, and affecting or partly
feeling a sudden sickness, he abruptly left the theatre. The king being
departed, the play was given over. Now Hamlet had seen enough to be
satisfied that the words of the ghost were true, and no illusion; and in
a fit of gaiety, like that which comes over a man who suddenly has some
great doubt or scruple resolved, he swore to Horatio, that he would take
the ghost's word for a thousand pounds. But before he could make up his
resolution as to what measures of revenge he should take, now he was
certainly informed that his uncle was his father's murderer, he was sent
for by the queen his mother, to a private conference in her closet.
It was by desire of the king that the queen sent for Hamlet, that she
might signify to her son how much his late behaviour had displeased them
both, and the king, wishing to know all that passed at that conference,
and thinking that the too partial report of a mother might let slip some
part of Hamlet's words, which it might much import the king to know,
Polonius, the old counsellor of state, was ordered to plant himself
behind the hangings in the queen's closet, where he might unseen hear
all that passed. This artifice was particularly adapted to the
disposition of Polonius, who was a man grown old in crooked maxims and
policies of state, and delighted to get at the knowledge of matters in
an indirect and cunning way.