[Footnote 7: '_milche_'--capable of giving milk: here _capable of
tears_, which the burning eyes of the gods were not before.]
[Footnote 8: 'And would have made passion in the Gods.']
[Footnote 9: 'whether'.]
[Page 108]
were better haue a bad Epitaph, then their ill
report while you liued.[1] [Sidenote: live]
_Pol_. My Lord, I will vse them according to
their desart.
_Ham_. Gods bodykins man, better. Vse euerie
[Sidenote: bodkin man, much better,]
man after his desart, and who should scape whipping:
[Sidenote: shall]
vse them after your own Honor and Dignity.
The lesse they deserue, the more merit is in
your bountie. Take them in.
_Pol_. Come sirs. _Exit Polon_.[2]
_Ham_. Follow him Friends: wee'l heare a play
to morrow.[3] Dost thou heare me old Friend, can
you play the murther of _Gonzago_?
_Play_. I my Lord.
_Ham_. Wee'l ha't to morrow night. You could
for a need[4] study[5] a speech of some dosen or sixteene
[Sidenote: for neede | dosen lines, or]
lines, which I would set downe, and insert
in't? Could ye not?[6] [Sidenote: you]
_Play_. I my Lord.
_Ham_. Very well. Follow that Lord, and looke
you mock him not.[7] My good Friends, Ile leaue
you til night you are welcome to _Elsonower_?
[Sidenote: _Exeuent Pol. and Players_.]
_Rosin_. Good my Lord. _Exeunt_.
_Manet Hamlet_.[8]
_Ham_. I so, God buy'ye[9]: Now I am alone. [Sidenote: buy to you,[9]]
Oh what a Rogue and Pesant slaue am I?[10]
Is it not monstrous that this Player heere,[11]
But in a Fixion, in a dreame of Passion,
Could force his soule so to his whole conceit,[12]
[Sidenote: his own conceit]
That from her working, all his visage warm'd;
[Sidenote: all the visage wand,]
Teares in his eyes, distraction in's Aspect, [Sidenote: in his]
A broken voyce, and his whole Function suiting [Sidenote: an his]
With Formes, to his Conceit?[13] And all for nothing?
[Footnote 1: Why do the editors choose the present tense of the
_Quarto_? Hamlet does not mean, 'It is worse to have the ill report of
the Players while you live, than a bad epitaph after your death.' The
order of the sentence has provided against that meaning. What he means
is, that their ill report in life will be more against your reputation
after death than a bad epitaph.]
[Footnote 2: _Not in Quarto_.]
[Footnote 3: He detains their leader.]
[Footnote 4: 'for a special reason'.]
[Footnote 5: _Study_ is still the Player's word for _commit to memory_.]
[Footnote 6: Note Hamlet's quick resolve, made clearer towards the end
of the following soliloquy.]
[Footnote 7: Polonius is waiting at the door: this is intended for his
hearing.]
[Footnote 8: _Not in Q_.]
[Footnote 9: Note the varying forms of _God be with you_.]
[Footnote 10: _1st Q_.
Why what a dunghill idiote slaue am I?
Why these Players here draw water from eyes:
For Hecuba, why what is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?]
[Footnote 11: Everything rings on the one hard, fixed idea that
possesses him; but this one idea has many sides. Of late he has been
thinking more upon the woman-side of it; but the Player with his speech
has brought his father to his memory, and he feels he has been
forgetting him: the rage of the actor recalls his own 'cue for passion.'
Always more ready to blame than justify himself, he feels as if he ought
to have done more, and so falls to abusing himself.]
[Footnote 12: _imagination_.]
[Footnote 13: 'his whole operative nature providing fit forms for the
embodiment of his imagined idea'--of which forms he has already
mentioned his _warmed visage_, his _tears_, his _distracted look_, his
_broken voice_.
In this passage we have the true idea of the operation of the genuine
_acting faculty_. Actor as well as dramatist, the Poet gives us here his
own notion of his second calling.]
[Page 110]
For _Hecuba_?
What's _Hecuba_ to him, or he to _Hecuba_,[1]
[Sidenote: or he to her,]
That he should weepe for her? What would he doe,
Had he the Motiue and the Cue[2] for passion
[Sidenote: , and that for]
That I haue? He would drowne the Stage with teares,
And cleaue the generall eare with horrid speech:
Make mad the guilty, and apale[3] the free,[4]
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,
The very faculty of Eyes and Eares. Yet I, [Sidenote: faculties]
A dull and muddy-metled[5] Rascall, peake
Like Iohn a-dreames, vnpregnant of my cause,[6]
And can say nothing: No, not for a King,
Vpon whose property,[7] and most deere life,
A damn'd defeate[8] was made. Am I a Coward?[9]
Who calles me Villaine? breakes my pate a-crosse?
Pluckes off my Beard, and blowes it in my face?
Tweakes me by'th'Nose?[10] giues me the Lye i'th' Throate,
[Sidenote: by the]
As deepe as to the Lungs? Who does me this?
Ha? Why I should take it: for it cannot be,
[Sidenote: Hah, s'wounds I]
But I am Pigeon-Liuer'd, and lacke Gall[11]
To make Oppression bitter, or ere this,
[Sidenote: 104] I should haue fatted all the Region Kites
[Sidenote: should a fatted]
With this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine,
[Sidenote: bloody, baudy]
Remorselesse,[12] Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles[13] villaine!
Oh Vengeance![14]
Who? What an Asse am I? I sure, this is most braue,
[Sidenote: Why what an Asse am I, this]
That I, the Sonne of the Deere murthered, [Sidenote: a deere]
Prompted to my Reuenge by Heauen, and Hell,
Must (like a Whore) vnpacke my heart with words,
And fall a Cursing like a very Drab,[15]
A Scullion? Fye vpon't: Foh. About my Braine.[16]
[Sidenote: a stallyon, | braines; hum,]
[Footnote 1: Here follows in 1st _Q_.
What would he do and if he had my losse?
His father murdred, and a Crowne bereft him,
[Sidenote: 174] He would turne all his teares to droppes of blood,
Amaze the standers by with his laments,
&c. &c.]
[Footnote 2: Speaking of the Player, he uses the player-word.]
[Footnote 3: _make pale_--appal.]
[Footnote 4: _the innocent_.]
[Footnote 5: _Mettle_ is spirit--rather in the sense of _animal-spirit_:
_mettlesome_--spirited, _as a horse_.]
[Footnote 6: '_unpossessed by_ my cause'.]
[Footnote 7: _personality, proper person_.]
[Footnote 8: _undoing, destruction_--from French _défaire_.]
[Footnote 9: In this mood he no more understands, and altogether doubts
himself, as he has previously come to doubt the world.]
[Footnote 10: _1st Q_. 'or twites my nose.']
[Footnote 11: It was supposed that pigeons had no gall--I presume from
their livers not tasting bitter like those of perhaps most birds.]
[Footnote 12: _pitiless_.]
[Footnote 13: _unnatural_.]
[Footnote 14: This line is not in the _Quarto_.]
[Footnote 15: Here in _Q._ the line runs on to include _Foh_. The next
line ends with _heard_.]
[Footnote 16: _Point thus_: 'About! my brain.' He apostrophizes his
brain, telling it to set to work.]
[Page 112]
I haue heard, that guilty Creatures sitting at a Play,
Haue by the very cunning of the Scoene,[1]
Bene strooke so to the soule, that presently
They haue proclaim'd their Malefactions.
For Murther, though it haue no tongue, will speake
With most myraculous Organ.[2] Ile haue these Players,
Play something like the murder of my Father,
Before mine Vnkle. Ile obserue his lookes,
[Sidenote: 137] Ile tent him to the quicke: If he but blench[3]
[Sidenote: if a doe blench]
I know my course. The Spirit that I haue seene
[Sidenote: 48] May[4] be the Diuell, and the Diuel hath power
[Sidenote: May be a deale, and the deale]
T'assume a pleasing shape, yea and perhaps
Out of my Weaknesse, and my Melancholly,[5]
As he is very potent with such Spirits,[6]
[Sidenote: 46] Abuses me to damne me.[7] Ile haue grounds
More Relatiue then this: The Play's the thing,
Wherein Ile catch the Conscience of the King.
_Exit._
* * * * *