The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 47

[Footnote 7: --'that you speak to me in such fas.h.i.+on?']

[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 b.l.o.o.d.y deed is this? [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham._ A b.l.o.o.d.y 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 d.a.m.ned 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 ma.s.se, [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 pa.s.sage 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 ma.s.s,

(_the earth, solid, material, composite, a corporeal ma.s.s 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.d did seeme to set his Seale, To giue the world a.s.surance 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]