But I perceiue by thy distracted lookes,
Thy mother's fearefull, and she stands amazde:
Speake to her Hamlet, for her sex is weake,
Comfort thy mother, Hamlet, thinke on me.]
[Footnote 4: --not used here for bare _imagination_, but imagination
with its concomitant feeling:--_conception_. 198.]
[Footnote 5: His last word ere he vanishes utterly, concerns his queen;
he is tender and gracious still to her who sent him to hell. This
attitude of the Ghost towards his faithless wife, is one of the
profoundest things in the play. All the time she is not thinking of him
any more than seeing him--for 'is he not dead!'--is looking straight at
where he stands, but is all unaware of him.]
[Footnote 6: I understand him to speak this with a kind of lost,
mechanical obedience. The description his mother gives of him makes it
seem as if the Ghost were drawing his ghost out to himself, and turning
his body thereby half dead.]
[Footnote 7: 'as if there were life in excrements.' The nails and hair
were 'excrements'--things _growing out_.]
[Footnote 8: Note the form _an end_--not _on end_. 51, 71.]
[Footnote 9: --all spoken coaxingly, as to one in a mad fit. She regards
his perturbation as a sudden assault of his ever present malady. One who
sees what others cannot see they are always ready to count mad.]
[Footnote 10: able to _take_, that is, to _understand_.]
[Footnote 11: --_to the Ghost_.]
[Footnote 12: 'what is in my power to do.']
[Footnote 13: Note antithesis here: '_your piteous action_;' '_my stern
effects_'--the things, that is, 'which I have to effect.' 'Lest your
piteous show convert--change--my stern doing; then what I do will lack
true colour; the result may be tears instead of blood; I shall weep
instead of striking.']
[Footnote 14: It is one of the constantly recurring delusions of
humanity that we see all there is.]
[Page 176]
[Sidenote: 114] This bodilesse Creation extasie[1] is very cunning
in.[2]
_Ham._ Extasie?[3]
My Pulse as yours doth temperately keepe time,
And makes as healthfull Musicke.[4] It is not madnesse
That I haue vttered; bring me to the Test
And I the matter will re-word: which madnesse [Sidenote: And the]
Would gamboll from. Mother, for loue of Grace,
Lay not a flattering Vnction to your soule,
[Sidenote: not that flattering]
That not your trespasse, but my madnesse speakes:
[Sidenote: 182] It will but skin and filme the Vlcerous place,
Whil'st ranke Corruption mining all within, [Sidenote: whiles]
Infects vnseene, Confesse your selfe to Heauen,
Repent what's past, auoyd what is to come,
And do not spred the Compost or the Weedes, [Sidenote: compost on the]
To make them ranke. Forgiue me this my Vertue, [Sidenote: ranker,]
For in the fatnesse of this pursie[5] times, [Sidenote: these]
Vertue it selfe, of Vice must pardon begge,
Yea courb,[6] and woe, for leaue to do him good.
[Sidenote: curbe and wooe]
_Qu._ Oh Hamlet, [Sidenote: _Ger._]
Thou hast cleft my heart in twaine.
_Ham._ O throw away the worser part of it,
And Liue the purer with the other halfe. [Sidenote: And leaue the]
Good night, but go not to mine Vnkles bed, [Sidenote: my]
Assume a Vertue, if you haue it not,[7][A] refraine to night
[Sidenote: Assune | to refraine night,]
And that shall lend a kinde of easinesse
[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--
[8]That monster custome, who all sence doth eate
Of habits deuill,[9] is angell yet in this
That to the vse of actions faire and good,
He likewise giues a frock or Liuery
That aptly is put on]
[Footnote 1: madness 129.]
[Footnote 2: Here is the correspondent speech in the _1st Q._ I give it
because of the queen's denial of complicity in the murder.
_Queene_ Alas, it is the weakenesse of thy braine.
Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy hearts griefe:
But as I haue a soule, I sweare by heauen,
I neuer knew of this most horride murder:
But Hamlet, this is onely fantasie,
And for my loue forget these idle fits.
_Ham_. Idle, no mother, my pulse doth beate like yours,
It is not madnesse that possesseth Hamlet.]
[Footnote 3: _Not in Q._]
[Footnote 4: --_time_ being a great part of music. Shakspere more than
once or twice employs _music_ as a symbol with reference to corporeal
condition: see, for instance, _As you like it_, act i. sc. 2, 'But is
there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? is there yet
another dotes upon rib-breaking?' where the _broken music_ may be
regarded as the antithesis of the _healthful music_ here.]
[Footnote 5: _swoln, pampered_: an allusion to the _purse_ itself,
whether intended or not, is suggested.]
[Footnote 6: _bend, bow_.]
[Footnote 7: To _assume_ is to take to one: by _assume a virtue_, Hamlet
does not mean _pretend_--but the very opposite: _to pretend_ is _to hold
forth, to show_; what he means is, 'Adopt a virtue'--that of
_abstinence_--'and act upon it, order your behaviour by it, although you
may not _feel_ it. Choose the virtue--take it, make it yours.']
[Footnote 8: This omitted passage is obscure with the special
Shaksperean obscurity that comes of over-condensation. He omitted it, I
think, because of its obscurity. Its general meaning is plain
enough--that custom helps the man who tries to assume a virtue, as well
as renders it more and more difficult for him who indulges in vice to
leave it. I will paraphrase: 'That monster, Custom, who eats away all
sense, the devil of habits, is angel yet in this, that, for the exercise
of fair and good actions, he also provides a habit, a suitable frock or
livery, that is easily put on.' The play with the two senses of the word
_habit_ is more easily seen than set forth. To paraphrase more freely:
'That devil of habits, Custom, who eats away all sense of wrong-doing,
has yet an angel-side to him, in that he gives a man a mental dress, a
habit, helpful to the doing of the right thing.' The idea of hypocrisy
does not come in at all. The advice of Hamlet is: 'Be virtuous in your
actions, even if you cannot in your feelings; do not do the wrong thing
you would like to do, and custom will render the abstinence easy.']
[Footnote 9: I suspect it should be '_Of habits evil_'--the antithesis
to _angel_ being _monster_.]
[Page 178]
To the next abstinence. [A] Once more goodnight,
And when you are desirous to be blest,
Ile blessing begge of you.[1] For this same Lord,
I do repent: but heauen hath pleas'd it so,[2]
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their[3] Scourge and Minister.
I will bestow him,[4] and will answer well
The death I gaue him:[5] so againe, good night.
I must be cruell, onely to be kinde;[6]
Thus bad begins,[7] and worse remaines behinde.[8] [Sidenote: This bad]
[B]
_Qu_. What shall I do? [Sidenote: _Ger_.]
_Ham_. Not this by no meanes that I bid you do:
Let the blunt King tempt you againe to bed, [Sidenote: the blowt King]
Pinch Wanton on your cheeke, call you his Mouse,
And let him for a paire of reechie[9] kisses,
Or padling in your necke with his damn'd Fingers,
Make you to rauell all this matter out, [Sidenote: rouell]
[Sidenote: 60, 136, 156] That I essentially am not in madnesse.
But made in craft.[10] 'Twere good you let him know, [Sidenote: mad]
For who that's but a Queene, faire, sober, wise,
Would from a Paddocke,[11] from a Bat, a Gibbe,[12]
Such deere concernings hide, Who would do so,
No in despight of Sense and Secrecie,
Vnpegge the Basket on the houses top:
Let the Birds flye, and like the famous Ape
To try Conclusions[13] in the Basket, creepe
And breake your owne necke downe.[14]
_Qu_. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, [Sidenote: _Ger_.]
[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto;_--
the next more easie:[15]
For vse almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either[16] the deuill, or throwe him out
With wonderous potency:]
[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto:_--