[Footnote 6: _1st Q._
_Queene_ How now boy?
_Ham_. How now mother! come here, sit downe, for you
shall heare me speake.]
[Footnote 7: --'that you speak to me in such fashion?']
[Footnote 8: _Point thus_: 'so: you'--'would you were not so, for you
are _my_ mother.'--_with emphasis on_ 'my.' The whole is spoken sadly.]
[Footnote 9: --'speak so that you must mind them.']
[Footnote 10: The apprehension comes from the combined action of her
conscience and the notion of his madness.]
[Footnote 11: There is no precipitancy here--only instant resolve and
execution. It is another outcome and embodiment of Hamlet's rare faculty
for action, showing his delay the more admirable. There is here neither
time nor call for delay. Whoever the man behind the arras might be, he
had, by spying upon him in the privacy of his mother's room, forfeited
to Hamlet his right to live; he had heard what he had said to his
mother, and his death was necessary; for, if he left the room, Hamlet's
last chance of fulfilling his vow to the Ghost was gone: if the play had
not sealed, what he had now spoken must seal his doom. But the decree
had in fact already gone forth against his life. 158.]
[Page 168]
_Pol._ Oh I am slaine. [1]_Killes Polonius._[2]
_Qu._ Oh me, what hast thou done? [Sidenote: _Ger._]
_Ham._ Nay I know not, is it the King?[3]
_Qu._ Oh what a rash, and bloody deed is this? [Sidenote: _Ger._]
_Ham._ A bloody deed, almost as bad good Mother,
[Sidenote: 56] As kill a King,[4] and marrie with his Brother.
_Qu._ As kill a King? [Sidenote: _Ger._]
_Ham._ I Lady, 'twas my word.[5] [Sidenote: it was]
Thou wretched, rash, intruding foole farewell,
I tooke thee for thy Betters,[3] take thy Fortune, [Sidenote: better,]
Thou find'st to be too busie, is some danger,
Leaue wringing of your hands, peace, sit you downe,
And let me wring your heart, for so I shall
If it be made of penetrable stuffe;
If damned Custome haue not braz'd it so,
That it is proofe and bulwarke against Sense. [Sidenote: it be]
_Qu._ What haue I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tong,
[Sidenote: _Ger._]
In noise so rude against me?[6]
_Ham._ Such an Act
That blurres the grace and blush of Modestie,[7]
Calls Vertue Hypocrite, takes off the Rose
From the faire forehead of an innocent loue,
And makes a blister there.[8] Makes marriage vowes
[Sidenote: And sets a]
As false as Dicers Oathes. Oh such a deed,
As from the body of Contraction[9] pluckes
The very soule, and sweete Religion makes
A rapsidie of words. Heauens face doth glow, [Sidenote: dooes]
Yea this solidity and compound masse, [Sidenote: Ore this]
With tristfull visage as against the doome,
[Sidenote: with heated visage,]
Is thought-sicke at the act.[10] [Sidenote: thought sick]
_Qu._ Aye me; what act,[11] that roares so lowd,[12]
and thunders in the Index.[13]
[Footnote 1: _Not in Q._]
[Footnote 2: --_through the arras_.]
[Footnote 3: Hamlet takes him for, hopes it is the king, and thinks here
to conclude: he is not praying now! and there is not a moment to be
lost, for he has betrayed his presence and called for help. As often as
immediate action is demanded of Hamlet, he is immediate with his
response--never hesitates, never blunders. There is no blunder here:
being where he was, the death of Polonius was necessary now to the death
of the king. Hamlet's resolve is instant, and the act simultaneous with
the resolve. The weak man is sure to be found wanting when immediate
action is necessary; Hamlet never is. Doubtless those who blame him as
dilatory, here blame him as precipitate, for they judge according to
appearance and consequence.
All his delay after this is plainly compelled, although I grant he was
not sorry to have to await such _more presentable_ evidence as at last
he procured, so long as he did not lose the final possibility of
vengeance.]
[Footnote 4: This is the sole reference in the interview to the murder.
I take it for tentative, and that Hamlet is satisfied by his mother's
utterance, carriage, and expression, that she is innocent of any
knowledge of that crime. Neither does he allude to the adultery: there
is enough in what she cannot deny, and that only which can be remedied
needs be taken up; while to break with the king would open the door of
repentance for all that had preceded.]
[Footnote 5: He says nothing of the Ghost to his mother.]
[Footnote 6: She still holds up and holds out.]
[Footnote 7: 'makes Modesty itself suspected.']
[Footnote 8: 'makes Innocence ashamed of the love it cherishes.']
[Footnote 9: 'plucks the spirit out of all forms of contracting or
agreeing.' We have lost the social and kept only the physical meaning of
the noun.]
[Footnote 10: I cannot help thinking the _Quarto_ reading of this
passage the more intelligible, as well as much the more powerful. We may
imagine a red aurora, by no means a very unusual phenomenon, over the
expanse of the sky:--
Heaven's face doth glow (_blush_)
O'er this solidity and compound mass,
(_the earth, solid, material, composite, a corporeal mass in
confrontment with the spirit-like etherial, simple, uncompounded heaven
leaning over it_)
With tristful (_or_ heated, _as the reader may choose_)
visage: as against the doom,
(_as in the presence, or in anticipation of the revealing judgment_)
Is thought sick at the act.
(_thought is sick at the act of the queen_)
My difficulties as to the _Folio_ reading are--why the earth should be
so described without immediate contrast with the sky; and--how the earth
could be showing a tristful visage, and the sickness of its thought. I
think, if the Poet indeed made the alterations and they are not mere
blunders, he must have made them hurriedly, and without due attention. I
would not forget, however, that there may be something present but too
good for me to find, which would make the passage plain as it stands.
Compare _As you like it_, act i. sc. 3.
For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.]
[Footnote 11: In Q. the rest of this speech is Hamlet's; his long speech
begins here, taking up the queen's word.]
[Footnote 12: She still stands out.]
[Footnote 13: 'thunders in the very indication or mention of it.' But by
'the Index' may be intended the influx or table of contents of a book,
at the beginning of it.]
[Page 170]
_Ham._ Looke heere vpon this Picture, and on this,
The counterfet presentment of two Brothers:[1]
See what a grace was seated on his Brow, [Sidenote: on this]
[Sidenote: 151] _Hyperions_ curies, the front of Ioue himselfe,
An eye like Mars, to threaten or command [Sidenote: threaten and]
A Station, like the Herald Mercurie
New lighted on a heauen kissing hill: [Sidenote: on a heaue, a kissing]
A Combination, and a forme indeed,
Where euery God did seeme to set his Seale,
To giue the world assurance of a man.[2]
This was your Husband. Looke you now what followes.
Heere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eare
Blasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes?
[Sidenote: wholsome brother,]
Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed,
And batten on this Moore?[3] Ha? Haue you eyes?
You cannot call it Loue: For at your age,
The hey-day[4] in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waites vpon the Judgement: and what Iudgement
Would step from this, to this? [A] What diuell was't,
That thus hath cousend you at hoodman-blinde?[5] [Sidenote: hodman]
[B]
O Shame! where is thy Blush? Rebellious Hell,
If thou canst mutine in a Matrons bones,
[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--
sence sure youe haue
Els could you not haue motion, but sure that sence
Is appoplext, for madnesse would not erre
Nor sence to extacie[6] was nere so thral'd
But it reseru'd some quantity of choise[7]
To serue in such[8] a difference,]
[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight.
Eares without hands, or eyes, smelling sance[9] all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sence
Could not so mope:[10]]
[Footnote 1: He points to the portraits of the two brothers, side by
side on the wall.]
[Footnote 2: See _Julius Caesar_, act v. sc. 5,--speech of _Antony_ at
the end.]
[Footnote 3: --perhaps an allusion as well to the complexion of
Claudius, both moral and physical.]
[Footnote 4: --perhaps allied to the German _heida_, and possibly the
English _hoyden_ and _hoity-toity_. Or is it merely
_high-day--noontide_?]
[Footnote 5: 'played tricks with you while hooded in the game of
_blind-man's-bluff_?' The omitted passage of the _Quarto_ enlarges the
figure.
_1st Q._ 'hob-man blinde.']
[Footnote 6: madness.]
[Footnote 7: Attributing soul to sense, he calls its distinguishment
_choice_.]
[Footnote 8: --emphasis on _such_.]
[Footnote 9: This spelling seems to show how the English word _sans_
should be pronounced.]
[Footnote 10: --'be so dull.']
[Page 172]
To flaming youth, let Vertue be as waxe,
And melt in her owne fire. Proclaime no shame,
When the compulsiue Ardure giues the charge,
Since Frost it selfe,[1] as actiuely doth burne,
As Reason panders Will. [Sidenote: And reason pardons will.]
_Qu._ O Hamlet, speake no more.[2] [Sidenote: _Ger._]
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soule,
[Sidenote: my very eyes into my soule,]
And there I see such blacke and grained[3] spots,
[Sidenote: greeued spots]
As will not leaue their Tinct.[4] [Sidenote: will leaue there their]
_Ham._ Nay, but to liue[5]
In the ranke sweat of an enseamed bed, [Sidenote: inseemed]
Stew'd in Corruption; honying and making loue
[Sidenote: 34] Ouer the nasty Stye.[6]
_Qu._ Oh speake to me, no more, [Sidenote: _Ger._]
[Sidenote: 158] These words like Daggers enter in mine eares.
[Sidenote: my]
No more sweet _Hamlet_.
_Ham._ A Murderer, and a Villaine:
A Slaue, that is not twentieth part the tythe [Sidenote: part the kyth]
Of your precedent Lord. A vice[7] of Kings,
A Cutpurse of the Empire and the Rule.
That from a shelfe, the precious Diadem stole,
And put it in his Pocket.
_Qu._ No more.[8] [Sidenote: _Ger._]
_Enter Ghost._[9]
_Ham._ A King of shreds and patches.
[Sidenote: 44] Saue me; and houer o're me with your wings[10]
You heauenly Guards. What would you gracious figure?
[Sidenote: your gracious]
_Qu._ Alas he's mad.[11] [Sidenote: _Ger._]
_Ham._ Do you not come your tardy Sonne to chide,
That laps't in Time and Passion, lets go by[12]
Th'important acting of your dread command? Oh say.[13]
[Footnote 1: --his mother's matronly age.]
[Footnote 2: She gives way at last.]
[Footnote 3: --spots whose blackness has sunk into the grain, or final
particles of the substance.]
[Footnote 4: --transition form of tint:--'will never give up their
colour;' 'will never be cleansed.']
[Footnote 5: He persists.]
[Footnote 6: --Claudius himself--his body no 'temple of the Holy Ghost,'
but a pig-sty. 3.]
[Footnote 7: The clown of the old Moral Play.]
[Footnote 8: She seems neither surprised nor indignant at any point in
the accusation: her consciousness of her own guiit has overwhelmed her.]
[Footnote 9: The _1st Q._ has _Enter the ghost in his night gowne_. It
was then from the first intended that he should not at this point appear
in armour--in which, indeed, the epithet _gracious figure_ could hardly
be applied to him, though it might well enough in one of the costumes in
which Hamlet was accustomed to see him--as this dressing-gown of the
_1st Q._ A ghost would appear in the costume in which he naturally
imagined himself, and in his wife's room would not show himself clothed
as when walking among the fortifications of the castle. But by the words
lower down (174)--
My Father in his habite, as he liued,
the Poet indicates, not his dressing-gown, but his usual habit, _i.e._
attire.]
[Footnote 10: --almost the same invocation as when first he saw the
apparition.]
[Footnote 11: The queen cannot see the Ghost. Her conduct has built such
a wall between her and her husband that I doubt whether, were she a
ghost also, she could see him. Her heart had left him, so they are no
more together in the sphere of mutual vision. Neither does the Ghost
wish to show himself to her. As his presence is not corporeal, a ghost
may be present to but one of a company.]
[Footnote 12: 1. 'Who, lapsed (_fallen, guilty_), lets action slip in
delay and suffering.' 2. 'Who, lapsed in (_fallen in, overwhelmed by_)
delay and suffering, omits' &c. 3. 'lapsed in respect of time, and
because of passion'--the meaning of the preposition _in_, common to
both, reacted upon by the word it governs. 4. 'faulty both in delaying,
and in yielding to suffering, when action is required.' 5. 'lapsed
through having too much time and great suffering.' 6. 'allowing himself
to be swept along by time and grief.'
Surely there is not another writer whose words would so often admit of
such multiform and varied interpretation--each form good, and true, and
suitable to the context! He seems to see at once all the relations of a
thing, and to try to convey them at once, in an utterance single as the
thing itself. He would condense the infinite soul of the meaning into
the trembling, overtaxed body of the phrase!]
[Footnote 13: In the renewed presence of the Ghost, all its former
influence and all the former conviction of its truth, return upon him.
He knows also how his behaviour must appear to the Ghost, and sees
himself as the Ghost sees him. Confronted with the gracious figure, how
should he think of self-justification! So far from being able to explain
things, he even forgets the doubt that had held him back--it has
vanished from the noble presence! He is now in the world of belief; the
world of doubt is nowhere!--Note the masterly opposition of moods.]
[Page 174]
_Ghost._ Do not forget: this Visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.[1]
But looke, Amazement on thy Mother sits;[2]
[Sidenote: 30, 54] O step betweene her, and her fighting Soule,[3]
[Sidenote: 198] Conceit[4] in weakest bodies, strongest workes.
Speake to her _Hamlet_.[5]
_Ham._ How is it with you Lady?[6]
_Qu._ Alas, how is't with you? [Sidenote: _Ger._]
That you bend your eye on vacancie, [Sidenote: you do bend]
And with their corporall ayre do hold discourse.
[Sidenote: with th'incorporall ayre]
Forth at your eyes, your spirits wildely peepe,
And as the sleeping Soldiours in th'Alarme,
Your bedded haire, like life in excrements,[7]
Start vp, and stand an end.[8] Oh gentle Sonne,
Vpon the heate and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle coole patience. Whereon do you looke?[9]
_Ham._ On him, on him: look you how pale he glares,
His forme and cause conioyn'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capeable.[10] Do not looke vpon me,[11]
Least with this pitteous action you conuert
My sterne effects: then what I haue to do,[12]
[Sidenote: 111] Will want true colour; teares perchance for blood.[13]
_Qu._ To who do you speake this? [Sidenote: _Ger._ To whom]
_Ham._ Do you see nothing there?
_Qu._ Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.[14] [Sidenote: _Ger._]
_Ham._ Nor did you nothing heare?
_Qu._ No, nothing but our selues. [Sidenote: _Ger._]
_Ham._ Why look you there: looke how it steals away:
[Sidenote: 173] My Father in his habite, as he liued,
Looke where he goes euen now out at the Portall.
_Exit._ [Sidenote: _Exit Ghost._]
[Sidenote: 114] _Qu._ This is the very coynage of your Braine,
[Sidenote: _Ger._]
[Footnote 1: The Ghost here judges, as alone is possible to him, from
what he knows--from the fact that his brother Claudius has not yet made
his appearance in the ghost-world. Not understanding Hamlet's
difficulties, he mistakes Hamlet himself.]
[Footnote 2: He mistakes also, through his tenderness, the condition of
his wife--imagining, it would seem, that she feels his presence, though
she cannot see him, or recognize the source of the influence which he
supposes to be moving her conscience: she is only perturbed by Hamlet's
behaviour.]
[Footnote 3: --fighting within itself, as the sea in a storm may be said
to fight.
He is careful as ever over the wife he had loved and loves still;
careful no less of the behaviour of the son to his mother.