"The _Daemon_ of Socrates were peradventure a certain
impulsion or will which without the advice of his discourse
presented itself unto him. In a mind so well purified, and
by continual exercise of wisdom and virtue so well prepared
as his was, it is likely his inclinations (though rash and
inconsiderate) were ever of great moment, and worthy to be
followed. Every man feeleth in himself some image of such
agitations, of a prompt, vehement, and casual opinion. It is
in me to give them some authority, that afford so little to
our wisdom. And I have had some (equally weak in reason and
violent in persuasion and dissuasion, which was more
ordinary to Socrates) by which I have so happily and so
profitably suffered myself to be transported, as they might
perhaps be thought to contain some matter of divine
inspiration."[15]
"Even in our counsels and deliberations, some chance or good
luck must needs be joined to them; for whatsoever our
wisdom can effect is no great matter."[16]
"When I consider the most glorious exploits of war, methinks
I see that those who have had the conduct of them employ
neither counsel nor deliberation about them, but for fashion
sake, and leave the best part of the enterprise to fortune;
and on the confidence they have in her aid, they still go
beyond the limits of all discourse. Casual rejoicings and
strange furies ensue among their deliberations."[17] etc.
Compare finally Florio's translation of the lines of Manilius cited by
Montaigne at the end of the 47th Essay of the First Book:
"'Tis best for ill-advis'd, wisdom may fail,[18]
Fortune proves not the cause that should prevail,
But here and there without respect doth sail:
A higher power forsooth us overdraws,
And mortal states guides with immortal laws."
It is to be remembered, indeed, that the idea expressed in Hamlet's
words to Horatio is partly anticipated in the rhymed speech of the
Player-King in the play-scene in Act III., which occurs in the First
Quarto:
"Our wills, our fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own."
Such a passage, reiterating a familiar commonplace, might seem at first
sight to tell against the view that Hamlet's later speech to Horatio is
an echo of Montaigne. But that view being found justified by the
evidence, and the idea in that passage being exactly coincident with
Montaigne's, while the above lines are only partially parallel in
meaning, we are forced to admit that Shakspere may have been influenced
by Montaigne even where a partial precedent might be found in his own or
other English work.
III. The phrase "discourse of reason," which is spoken by Hamlet in his
first soliloquy,[19] and which first appears in the Second Quarto, is
not used by Shakspere in any play before HAMLET; and he uses it again in
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA;[20] while "discourse of thought" appears in
OTHELLO;[21] and "discourse," in the sense of reasoning faculty, is used
in Hamlet's last soliloquy.[22] In English literature this use of the
word seems to be special in Shakspere's period,[23] and it has been
noted by an admirer as a finely Shaksperean expression. But the
expression "discourse of reason" occurs at least four times in
Montaigne's Essays, and in Florio's translation of them: in the
essay[24] THAT TO PHILOSOPHISE IS TO LEARN HOW TO DIE; again at the
close of the essay[25] _A demain les affaires_; again in the first
paragraph of the APOLOGY OF RAIMOND SEBONDE[26]; and yet again in the
chapter on THE HISTORY OF SPURINA;[27] and though it seems to be
scholastic in origin, and occurs once or twice before 1600 in English
books, it is difficult to doubt that, like the other phrase above cited,
it came to Shakspere through Florio's Montaigne. The word _discours_ is
a hundred times used singly by Montaigne, as by Shakspere in the phrase
"of such large discourse," for the process of ratiocination.
IV. Then again there is the clue of Shakspere's use of the word
"consummation" in the revised form of the "To be" soliloquy. This, as
Mr. Feis pointed out,[28] is the word used by Florio as a rendering of
_aneantissement_ in the speech of Socrates as given by Montaigne in the
essay[29] OF PHYSIOGNOMY. Shakspere makes Hamlet speak of annihilation
as "a consummation devoutly to be wished." Florio has: "If it (death) be
a consummation of one's being, it is also an amendment and entrance into
a long and quiet night. We find nothing so sweet in life as a quiet and
gentle sleep, and without dreams." Here not only do the words coincide
in a peculiar way, but the idea in the two phrases is the same; the
theme of sleep and dreams being further common to the two writings.
Beyond these, I have not noted any correspondences of phrase so precise
as to prove reminiscence beyond possibility of dispute; but it is not
difficult to trace striking correspondences which, though falling short
of explicit reproduction, inevitably suggest a relation; and these it
now behoves us to consider. The remarkable thing is, as regards HAMLET,
that they almost all occur in passages not present in the First Quarto.
V. When we compare part of the speech of Rosencrantz on sedition[30]
with a passage in Montaigne's essay, OF CUSTOM,[31] we find a somewhat
close coincidence. In the play Rosencrantz says:
"The cease of Majesty,
Dies not alone; but like a gulf doth draw
What's near with it: it is a massy wheel
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin."
Florio has:
"Those who attempt to shake an Estate are commonly the first
overthrown by the fall of it.... The contexture and
combining of this monarchy and great building having been
dismissed and dissolved by it, namely, in her old years,
giveth as much overture and entrance as a man will to like
injuries. Royal _majesty_ doth more hardly fall from the top
to the middle, than it tumbleth down from the middle to the
bottom."
The verbal correspondence here is only less decisive--as regards the use
of the word "majesty"--than in the passages collated by Mr. Morley;
while the thought corresponds as closely.
VI. The speech of Hamlet,[32] "There is nothing either good or bad but
thinking makes it so"; and Iago's "'tis in ourselves that we are thus or
thus,"[33] are expressions of a favourite thesis of Montaigne's, to
which he devotes an entire essay.[34] The Shaksperean phrases echo
closely such sentences as:--
"If that which we call evil and torment be neither torment
nor evil, but that our fancy only gives it that quality, it
is in us to change it.... That which we term evil is not so
of itself." ... "Every man is either well or ill according as
he finds himself."
And in the essay[35] OF DEMOCRITUS AND HERACLITUS there is another close
parallel:--
"Therefore let us take no more excuses from external
qualities of things. To us it belongeth to give ourselves
account of it. Our good and our evil hath no dependency but
from ourselves."
VII. Hamlet's apostrophe to his mother on
the power of custom--a passage which, like the
others above cited, first appears in the Second
Quarto--is similarly an echo of a favourite
proposition of Montaigne, who devotes to it the
essay[36] OF CUSTOM, AND NOT TO CHANGE READILY A
RECEIVED LAW. In that there occur the typical
passages:--
"Custom doth so blear us that we cannot distinguish the
usage of things.... Certes, chastity is an excellent virtue,
the commodity whereof is very well known; but to use it, and
according to nature to prevail with it, is as hard as it is
easy to endear it and to prevail with it according to
custom, to laws and precepts." "The laws of conscience,
which we say are born of nature, are born of custom."
Again, in the essay OF CONTROLLING ONE'S WILL[37] we have: "Custom is a
second nature, and not less potent."