that his uncle strives to cheer him, to present his situation in
another point of view. The feeling of his nothingness will not leave
him.
“The second stroke that came upon him wounded deeper, bowed still more.
It was the marriage of his mother. The faithful, tender son had yet a
mother, when his father passed away. He hoped in the company of his
surviving noble-minded parent, to reverence the heroic form of the
departed: but his mother, too, he loses; and it is something worse
than death that robs him of her. The trustful image, which a good
child loves to form of its parents, is gone. With the dead there is no
help, on the living no hold. Moreover, she is a woman; and her name is
Frailty, like that of all her sex.
“Now only does he feel completely bowed down, now only orphaned; and
no happiness of life can repay what he has lost. Not reflective or
sorrowful by nature, reflection and sorrow have become for him a heavy
obligation. It is thus that we see him first enter on the scene. I do
not think that I have mixed aught foreign with the play, or overcharged
a single feature of it.”
Serlo looked at his sister, and said: “Did I give thee a false picture
of our friend? He begins well: he has still many things to tell us,
many to persuade us of.” Wilhelm asseverated loudly that he meant not
to persuade, but to convince; he begged for another moment’s patience.
“Figure to yourselves this youth,” cried he, “this son of princes;
conceive him vividly, bring his state before your eyes and then observe
him when he learns that his father’s spirit walks; stand by him in the
terrors of the night, when even the venerable ghost appears before him.
He is seized with boundless horror; he speaks to the mysterious form;
he sees it beckon him; he follows and hears. The fearful accusation of
his uncle rings in his ears, the summons to revenge, and the piercing,
oft-repeated prayer, Remember me!
“And, when the ghost has vanished, who is it that stands before us? A
young hero panting for vengeance? A prince by birth, rejoicing to be
called to punish the usurper of his crown? No! trouble and astonishment
take hold of the solitary young man: he grows bitter against smiling
villains, swears that he will not forget the spirit, and concludes with
the significant ejaculation,--
“‘The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!’
“In these words, I imagine, will be found the key to Hamlet’s whole
procedure. To me it is clear that Shakespeare meant, in the present
case, to represent the effects of a great action laid upon a soul unfit
for the performance of it. In this view the whole play seems to me to
be composed. There is an oak-tree planted in a costly jar, which should
have borne only pleasant flowers in its bosom: the roots expand, the
jar is shivered.
“A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength
of nerve which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden it cannot bear
and must not cast away. All duties are holy for him: the present
is too hard. Impossibilities have been required of him,--not in
themselves impossibilities, but such for him. He winds and turns, and
torments himself; he advances and recoils; is ever put in mind, ever
puts himself in mind, at last does all but lose his purpose from his
thoughts, yet still without recovering his peace of mind.”
Several people entering interrupted the discussion. They were musical
dilettanti, who commonly assembled at Serlo’s once a week, and formed
a little concert. Serlo himself loved music much: he used to maintain
that a player without taste for it never could attain a distinct
conception and feeling of the scenic art. “As a man performs,” he
would observe, “with far more ease and dignity when his gestures
are accompanied and guided by a tune; so the player ought, in idea
as it were, to set to music even his prose parts, that he may not
monotonously slight them over in his individual style, but treat them
in suitable alternation by time and measure.”
Aurelia seemed to give but little heed to what was passing: at last she
conducted Wilhelm to another room; and going to the window, and looking
out at the starry sky, she said to him, “You have more to tell us about
Hamlet: I will not hurry you,--my brother must hear it as well as I;
but let me beg to know your thoughts about Ophelia.”
“Of her there cannot much be said,” he answered; “for a few
master-strokes complete her character. The whole being of Ophelia
floats in sweet and ripe sensation. Kindness for the prince, to whose
hand she may aspire, flows so spontaneously, her tender heart obeys its
impulses so unresistingly, that both father and brother are afraid:
both give her warning harshly and directly. Decorum, like the thin lawn
upon her bosom, cannot hide the soft, still movements of her heart: it,
on the contrary, betrays them. Her fancy is smit; her silent modesty
breathes amiable desire; and if the friendly goddess Opportunity should
shake the tree, its fruit would fall.”
“And then,” said Aurelia, “when she beholds herself forsaken, cast
away, despised; when all is inverted in the soul of her crazed lover,
and the highest changes to the lowest, and, instead of the sweet cup of
love, he offers her the bitter’ cup of woe--”
“Her heart breaks,” cried Wilhelm; “the whole structure of her being is
loosened from its joinings: her father’s death strikes fiercely against
it, and the fair edifice altogether crumbles into fragments.”
Serlo, this moment entering, inquired about his sister, and, looking
in the book which our friend had hold of, cried, “So you are again at
_Hamlet_? Very good! Many doubts have arisen in me, which seem not a
little to impair the canonical aspect of the play as you would have it
viewed. The English themselves have admitted that its chief interest
concludes with the third act; the last two lagging sorrily on, and
scarcely uniting with the rest: and certainly about the end it seems to
stand stock-still.”
“It is very possible,” said Wilhelm, “that some individuals of a
nation, which has so many masterpieces to feel proud of, may be led
by prejudice and narrowness of mind to form false judgments; but this
cannot hinder us from looking with our own eyes, and doing justice
where we see it due. I am very far from censuring the plan of _Hamlet_:
on the other hand, I believe there never was a grander one invented;
nay, it is not invented, it is real.”
“How do you demonstrate that?” inquired Serlo.
“I will not demonstrate anything,” said Wilhelm; “I will merely show
you what my own conceptions of it are.”
Aurelia raised herself from her cushion, leaned upon her hand, and
looked at Wilhelm, who, with the firmest assurance that he was in the
right, went on as follows: “It pleases us, it flatters us, to see a
hero acting on his own strength, loving and hating at the bidding of
his heart, undertaking and completing casting every obstacle aside,
and attaining some great end. Poets and historians would willingly
persuade us that so proud a lot may fall to man. In _Hamlet_ we are
taught another lesson; the hero is without a plan, but the play is
full of plan. Here we have no villain punished on some self-conceived
and rigidly accomplished scheme of vengeance. A horrid deed is done;
it rolls along with all its consequences, dragging with it even the
guiltless: the guilty perpetrator would, as it seems, evade the abyss
made ready for him; yet he plunges in, at the very point by which he
thinks he shall escape and happily complete his course.
“For it is the property of crime to extend its mischief over innocence,
as it is of virtue to extend its blessings over many that deserve
them not; while frequently the author of the one or the other is not
punished or rewarded at all. Here in this play of ours, how strange!
The Pit of darkness sends its spirit and demands revenge: in vain!
All circumstances tend one way, and hurry to revenge: in vain! Neither
earthly nor infernal thing may bring about what is reserved for Fate
alone. The hour of judgment comes; the wicked falls with the good; one
race is mowed away, that another may spring up.”
After a pause, in which they looked at one another, Serlo said, “You
pay no great compliment to Providence, in thus exalting Shakespeare;
and besides, it appears to me, that for the honor of your poet, as
others for the honor of Providence, you ascribe to him an object and a
plan such as he himself has never thought of.”
“Let me also put a question,” said Aurelia. “I have looked at Ophelia’s
part again: I am contented with it, and confident that, under certain
circumstances, I could play it. But tell me, should not the poet have
furnished the insane maiden with another sort of songs? Could not some
fragments out of melancholy ballads be selected for this purpose? Why
put double meanings and lascivious insipidities in the mouth of this
noble-minded girl?”
“Dear friend,” said Wilhelm, “even here I cannot yield you one iota.
In these singularities, in this apparent impropriety, a deep sense is
hid. Do we not understand from the very first what the mind of the
good, soft-hearted girl was busied with? Silently she lived within
herself, yet she scarce concealed her wishes, her longing: and how
often may she have attempted, like an unskilful nurse, to lull her
senses to repose with songs which only kept them more awake? But at
last, when her self-command is altogether gone, when the secrets of her
heart are hovering on her tongue, that tongue betrays her; and in the
innocence of insanity she solaces herself, unmindful of king or queen,
with the echo of her loose and well-beloved songs,--‘Tomorrow is Saint
Valentine’s Day,’ and ‘By Gis and by Saint Charity.’ ...”
* * * * *
“I must admit your picture of Ophelia to be just,” continued she; “I
cannot now misunderstand the object of the poet: I must pity; though,
as you paint her, I shall rather pity her than sympathize with her.
But allow me here to offer a remark, which in these few days you have
frequently suggested to me. I observe with admiration the correct,
keen, penetrating glance with which you judge of poetry, especially
dramatic poetry: the deepest abysses of invention are not hidden from
you, the finest touches of representation cannot escape you. Without
ever having viewed the objects in nature, you recognize the truth
of their images: there seems, as it were, a presentiment of all the
universe to lie in you, which by the harmonious touch of poetry is
awakened and unfolded. For in truth,” continued she, “from without,
you receive not much: I have scarcely seen a person that so little
knew, so totally misknew, the people he lived with, as you do. Allow
me to say it: in hearing you expound the mysteries of Shakespeare,
one would think you had just descended from a synod of the gods, and
had listened there while they were taking counsel how to form men; in
seeing you transact with your fellows, I could imagine you to be the
first large-born child of the Creation, standing agape, and gazing with
strange wonderment and edifying good nature at lions and apes and sheep
and elephants, and true-heartedly addressing them as your equals,
simply because they were there, and in motion like yourself.”
“The feeling of my ignorance in this respect,” said Wilhelm, “often
gives me pain; and I should thank you, worthy friend, if you would
help me to get a little better insight into life. From youth, I have
been accustomed to direct the eyes of my spirit inwards rather than
outwards; and hence it is very natural that, to a certain extent, I
should be acquainted with man, while of men I have not the smallest
knowledge....”
* * * * *
One of the conditions under which our friend had gone upon the stage
was not acceded to by Serlo without some limitations. Wilhelm had
required that _Hamlet_ should be played entire and unmutilated: the
other had agreed to this strange stipulation, in so far as it was
_possible_. On this point they had many a contest; for as to what was
possible or not possible, and what parts of the piece could be omitted
without mutilating it, the two were of very different opinions.
Wilhelm was still in that happy season when one cannot understand
how, in the woman one loves, in the writer one honors, there should
be anything defective. The feeling they excite in us is so entire,
so accordant with itself, that we cannot help attributing the same
perfect harmony to the objects themselves. Serlo again was willing
to discriminate, perhaps too willing: his acute understanding could
usually discern in any work of art nothing but a more or less
_im_perfect whole. He thought that, as pieces usually stood, there was
little reason to be chary about meddling with them; that of course
Shakespeare, and particularly _Hamlet_, would need to suffer much
curtailment.
But, when Serlo talked of separating the wheat from the chaff, Wilhelm
would not hear of it. “It is not chaff and wheat together,” said
he: “it is a trunk with boughs, twigs, leaves, buds, blossoms, and
fruit. Is not the one there with the others, and by means of them?” To
which Serlo would reply that people did not bring a whole tree upon
the table; that the artist was required to present his guests with
silver apples in platters of silver. They exhausted their invention in
similitudes, and their opinions seemed still farther to diverge.
Our friend was on the borders of despair when on one occasion, after
much debating, Serlo counseled him to take the simple plan,--to make a
brief resolution, to grasp his pen, to peruse the tragedy; dashing out
whatever would not answer, compressing several personages into one: and
if he was not skilled in such proceedings, or had not heart enough for
going through with them, he might leave the task to him, the manager,
who would engage to make short work with it.
“That is not our bargain,” answered Wilhelm. “How can you, with all
your taste, show so much levity?”
“My friend,” cried Serlo, “you yourself will erelong feel it and
show it. I know too well how shocking such a mode of treating works
is: perhaps it never was allowed on any theatre till now. But where,
indeed, was ever one so slighted as ours? Authors force us on this
wretched clipping system, and the public tolerates it. How many pieces
have we, pray, which do not overstep the measure of our numbers, of our
decorations and theatrical machinery, of the proper time, of the fit
alternation of dialogue, and the physical strength of the actor? And
yet we are to play, and play, and constantly give novelties. Ought
we not to profit by our privilege, then, since we accomplish just as
much by mutilated works as by entire ones? It is the public itself
that grants the privilege. Few Germans, perhaps few men of any modern
nation, have a proper sense of an æsthetic whole:--they praise and
blame by passages; they are charmed by passages; and who has greater
reason to rejoice at this than actors, since the stage is ever but a
patched and piece-work matter?”
“Is!” cried Wilhelm; “but _must_ it ever be so? Must everything that
is continue? Convince me not that you are right, for no power on earth
should force me to abide by any contract which I had concluded with the
grossest misconceptions.”
Serlo gave a merry turn to the business, and persuaded him to review
once more the many conversations they had had together about _Hamlet_,
and himself to invent some means of properly reforming the piece.
After a few days, which he had spent alone, our friend returned with
a cheerful look. “I am much mistaken,” cried he, “if I have not now
discovered how the whole is to be managed: nay, I am convinced that
Shakespeare himself would have arranged it so, had not his mind been
too exclusively directed to the ruling interest, and perhaps misled by
the novels which furnished him with his materials.”
“Let us hear,” said Serlo, placing himself with an air of solemnity
upon the sofa: “I will listen calmly, but judge with rigor.”
“I am not afraid of you,” said Wilhelm; “only hear me. In the
composition of this play, after the most accurate investigation and
the most mature reflection, I distinguish two classes of objects. The
first are the grand internal relations of the persons and events, the
powerful effects which arise from the characters and proceedings of the
main figures: these, I hold, are individually excellent; and the order
in which they are presented cannot be improved. No kind of interference
must be suffered to destroy them, or even essentially to change their
form. These are the things which stamp themselves deep into the
soul, which all men long to see, which no one dares to meddle with.
Accordingly, I understand, they have almost wholly been retained in
all our German theatres. But our countrymen have erred, in my opinion,
with regard to the second class of objects, which may be observed
in this tragedy: I allude to the external relations of the persons,
whereby they are brought from place to place, or combined in various
ways, by certain accidental incidents. These they have looked upon as
very unimportant; have spoken of them only in passing, or left them out
altogether. Now, indeed, it must be owned, these threads are slack and
slender; yet they run through the entire piece, and bind together much
that would otherwise fall asunder, and does actually fall asunder, when
you cut them off, and imagine you have done enough and more, if you
have left the ends hanging.
“Among these external relations I include the disturbances in Norway,
the war with young Fortinbras, the embassy to his uncle, the settling
of that feud, the march of young Fortinbras to Poland, and his coming
back at the end; of the same sort are Horatio’s return from Wittenberg,
Hamlet’s wish to go thither, the journey of Laertes to France, his
return, the despatch of Hamlet into England, his capture by pirates,
the death of the two courtiers by the letter which they carried. All
these circumstances and events would be very fit for expanding and
lengthening a novel; but here they injure exceedingly the unity of the
piece, particularly as the hero has no plan, and are, in consequence,
entirely out of place.”
“For once in the right!” cried Serlo.
“Do not interrupt me,” answered Wilhelm; “perhaps you will not always
think me right. These errors are like temporary props of an edifice:
they must not be removed till we have built a firm wall in their stead.
My project, therefore, is not at all to change those first-mentioned
grand situations, or at least as much as possible to spare them, both
collectively and individually; but with respect to these external,
single, dissipated, and dissipating motives, to cast them all at once
away, and substitute a solitary one instead of them.”
“And this?” inquired Serlo, springing up from his recumbent posture.
“It lies in the piece itself,” answered Wilhelm, “only I employ it
rightly. There are disturbances in Norway. You shall hear my plan, and
try it.
“After the death of Hamlet’s father, the Norwegians, lately conquered,
grow unruly. The viceroy of that country sends his son, Horatio, an old
school-friend of Hamlet’s, and distinguished above every other for his
bravery and prudence, to Denmark, to press forward the equipment of
the fleet, which, under the new luxurious king, proceeds but slowly.
Horatio has known the former king, having fought in his battles, having
even stood in favor with him,--a circumstance by which the first
ghost-scene will be nothing injured. The new sovereign gives Horatio
audience and sends Laertes into Norway with intelligence that the fleet
will soon arrive; whilst Horatio is commissioned to accelerate the
preparation of it: and the Queen, on the other hand, will not consent
that Hamlet, as he wishes, should go to sea along with him.”
“Heaven be praised!” cried Serlo; “we shall now get rid of Wittenberg
and the university, which was always a sorry piece of business. I think
your idea extremely good; for, except these two distant objects, Norway
and the fleet, the spectator will not be required to _fancy_ anything:
the rest he will _see_; the rest takes place before him; whereas his
imagination, on the other plan, was hunted over all the world.”
“You easily perceive,” said Wilhelm, “how I shall contrive to keep the
other parts together. When Hamlet tells Horatio of his uncle’s crime,
Horatio counsels him to go to Norway in his company, to secure the
affections of the army, and return in warlike force. Hamlet also is
becoming dangerous to the King and Queen; they find no readier method
of deliverance than to send him in the fleet, with Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern to be spies upon him; and, as Laertes in the meantime
comes from France, they determine that this youth, exasperated even
to murder, shall go after him. Unfavorable winds detain the fleet:
Hamlet returns; for his wandering through the churchyard, perhaps some
lucky motive may be thought of; his meeting with Laertes in Ophelia’s
grave is a grand moment, which we must not part with. After this, the
King resolves that it is better to get quit of Hamlet on the spot: the
festival of his departure, the pretended reconcilement with Laertes,
are now solemnized; on which occasion knightly sports are held, and
Laertes fights with Hamlet. Without the four corpses, I cannot end the
play: no one must survive. The right of popular election now again
comes in force; and Hamlet, while dying, gives his vote to Horatio.”
“Quick! quick!” said Serlo, “sit down and work the play: your plan has
my entire approbation; only let not your zeal evaporate.”
* * * * *
Wilhelm had already been for some time busied with translating
_Hamlet_; making use, as he labored, of Wieland’s spirited performance,
through which he had first become acquainted with Shakespeare. What
had been omitted in Wieland’s work he replaced, and had secured a
complete version, at the very time when Serlo and he were pretty well
agreed about the way of treating it. He now began, according to his
plan, to cut out and insert, to separate and unite, to alter, and
often to restore; for, satisfied as he was with his own conception, it
still appeared to him as if, in executing it, he were but spoiling the
original.
When all was finished, he read his work to Serlo and the rest.
They declared themselves exceedingly contented with it: Serlo, in
particular, made many flattering observations.
“You have felt very justly,” said he, among other things, “that some
external circumstances must accompany this play, but that they must be
simpler than those which the great poet has employed. What takes place
without the theatre, what the spectator does not see but must imagine,
is like a background, in front of which the acting figures move. Your
large and simple prospect of the fleet and Norway will do much to
improve the play: if this were altogether taken from it, we should have
but a family scene remaining; and the great idea that here a kingly
house, by internal crimes and incongruities, goes down to ruin, would
not be presented with its proper dignity. But if the former background
were left standing, so manifold, so fluctuating and confused, it would
hurt the impression of the figures.”
Wilhelm again took Shakespeare’s part; alleging that he wrote for
islanders, for Englishmen, who generally in the distance were
accustomed to see little else than ships and voyages, the coast of
France and privateers; and thus what perplexed and distracted others
was to them quite natural.
Serlo assented; and both were of opinion that, as the play was now
to be produced upon the German stage, this more serious and simple
background was the best adapted for the German mind.
The parts had been distributed before: Serlo undertook Polonius;
Aurelia, Ophelia; Laertes was already designated by his name; a young,
thick-set, jolly newcomer was to be Horatio; the King and Ghost alone
occasioned some perplexity, for both of these no one but Old Boisterous
remaining. Serlo proposed to make the Pedant, King; but against this
our friend protested in the strongest terms. They could resolve on
nothing.
Wilhelm had also allowed both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to continue
in his play. “Why not compress them into one?” said Serlo. “This
abbreviation will not cost you much.”