Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David King, and the Online Distributed

proofreading Team

THE TRAGEDIE OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARKE

A STUDY WITH THE TEXT OF THE FOLIO OF 1623

BY GEORGE MACDONALD

"What would you gracious figure?"

TO

MY HONOURED RELATIVE

ALEXANDER STEWART MACCOLL

A LITTLE LESS THAN KIN, AND MORE THAN KIND

TO WHOM I OWE IN ESPECIAL THE TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF

THE GREAT SOLILOQUY

I DEDICATE

WITH LOVE AND GRATITUDE

THIS EFFORT TO GIVE HAMLET AND SHAKSPERE THEIR DUE

GEORGE MAC DONALD

BORDIGHERA

Christmas, 1884

Summary:

The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark:
a study of the text of the folio of 1623
By George MacDonald
[Motto]: "What would you, gracious figure?"

Dr. Greville MacDonald looks on his father's commentary as the "most important interpretation of the play ever written… It is his intuitive understanding … rather than learned analysis—of which there is yet overwhelming evidence—that makes it so splendid."

Reading Level: Mature youth and adults.

PREFACE

By this edition of HAMLET I hope to help the student of Shakspere to understand the play—and first of all Hamlet himself, whose spiritual and moral nature are the real material of the tragedy, to which every other interest of the play is subservient. But while mainly attempting, from the words and behaviour Shakspere has given him, to explain the man, I have cast what light I could upon everything in the play, including the perplexities arising from extreme condensation of meaning, figure, and expression.

As it is more than desirable that the student should know when he is reading the most approximate presentation accessible of what Shakspere uttered, and when that which modern editors have, with reason good or bad, often not without presumption, substituted for that which they received, I have given the text, letter for letter, point for point, of the First Folio, with the variations of the Second Quarto in the margin and at the foot of the page.

Of HAMLET there are but two editions of authority, those called the Second Quarto and the First Folio; but there is another which requires remark.

In the year 1603 came out the edition known as the First Quarto—clearly without the poet's permission, and doubtless as much to his displeasure: the following year he sent out an edition very different, and larger in the proportion of one hundred pages to sixty-four. Concerning the former my theory is—though it is not my business to enter into the question here—that it was printed from Shakspere's sketch for the play, written with matter crowding upon him too fast for expansion or development, and intended only for a continuous memorandum of things he would take up and work out afterwards. It seems almost at times as if he but marked certain bales of thought so as to find them again, and for the present threw them aside—knowing that by the marks he could recall the thoughts they stood for, but not intending thereby to convey them to any reader. I cannot, with evidence before me, incredible but through the eyes themselves, of the illimitable scope of printers' blundering, believe all the confusion, unintelligibility, neglect of grammar, construction, continuity, sense, attributable to them. In parts it is more like a series of notes printed with the interlineations horribly jumbled; while in other parts it looks as if it had been taken down from the stage by an ear without a brain, and then yet more incorrectly printed; parts, nevertheless, in which it most differs from the authorized editions, are yet indubitably from the hand of Shakspere. I greatly doubt if any ready-writer would have dared publish some of its chaotic passages as taken down from the stage; nor do I believe the play was ever presented in anything like such an unfinished state. I rather think some fellow about the theatre, whether more rogue or fool we will pay him the thankful tribute not to enquire, chancing upon the crude embryonic mass in the poet's hand, traitorously pounced upon it, and betrayed it to the printers—therein serving the poet such an evil turn as if a sculptor's workman took a mould of the clay figure on which his master had been but a few days employed, and published casts of it as the sculptor's work.[1] To us not the less is the corpus delicti precious—and that unspeakably—for it enables us to see something of the creational development of the drama, besides serving occasionally to cast light upon portions of it, yielding hints of the original intention where the after work has less plainly presented it.

[Footnote 1: Shakspere has in this matter fared even worse than Sir Thomas Browne, the first edition of whose Religio Medici, nowise intended for the public, was printed without his knowledge.]

The Second Quarto bears on its title-page, compelled to a recognition of the former,—'Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect Coppie'; and it is in truth a harmonious world of which the former issue was but the chaos. It is the drama itself, the concluded work of the master's hand, though yet to be once more subjected to a little pruning, a little touching, a little rectifying. But the author would seem to have been as trusting over the work of the printers, as they were careless of his, and the result is sometimes pitiable. The blunders are appalling. Both in it and in the Folio the marginal note again and again suggests itself: 'Here the compositor was drunk, the press-reader asleep, the devil only aware.' But though the blunders elbow one another in tumultuous fashion, not therefore all words and phrases supposed to be such are blunders. The old superstition of plenary inspiration may, by its reverence for the very word, have saved many a meaning from the obliteration of a misunderstanding scribe: in all critical work it seems to me well to cling to the word until one sinks not merely baffled, but exhausted.

I come now to the relation between the Second Quarto and the Folio.

My theory is—that Shakspere worked upon his own copy of the Second Quarto, cancelling and adding, and that, after his death, this copy came, along with original manuscripts, into the hands of his friends the editors of the Folio, who proceeded to print according to his alterations.

These friends and editors in their preface profess thus: 'It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to haue bene wished, that the Author himselfe had liu'd to haue set forth, and ouerseen his owne writings; But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to haue collected & publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diuerse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of iniurious impostors, that expos'd them: euen those, are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceiued th[=e]. Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he vttered with that easinesse, that wee haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our prouince, who onely gather his works, and giue them you, to praise him. It is yours that reade him.'

These are hardly the words of men who would take liberties, and liberties enormous, after ideas of their own, with the text of a friend thus honoured. But although they printed with intent altogether faithful, they did so certainly without any adequate jealousy of the printers—apparently without a suspicion of how they could blunder. Of blunders therefore in the Folio also there are many, some through mere following of blundered print, some in fresh corruption of the same, some through mistaking of the manuscript corrections, and some probably from the misprinting of mistakes, so that the corrections themselves are at times anything but correctly recorded. I assume also that the printers were not altogether above the mean passion, common to the day-labourers of Art, from Chaucer's Adam Scrivener down to the present carvers of marble, for modifying and improving the work of the master. The vain incapacity of a self-constituted critic will make him regard his poorest fancy as an emendation; seldom has he the insight of Touchstone to recognize, or his modesty to acknowledge, that although his own, it is none the less an ill-favoured thing.

Not such, however, was the spirit of the editors; and all the changes of importance from the text of the Quarto I receive as Shakspere's own. With this belief there can be no presumption in saying that they seem to me not only to trim the parts immediately affected, but to render the play more harmonious and consistent. It is no presumption to take the Poet for superior to his work and capable of thinking he could better it—neither, so believing, to imagine one can see that he has been successful.

A main argument for the acceptance of the Folio edition as the Poet's last presentment of his work, lies in the fact that there are passages in it which are not in the Quarto, and are very plainly from his hand. If we accept these, what right have we to regard the omission from the Folio of passages in the Quarto as not proceeding from the same hand? Had there been omissions only, we might well have doubted; but the insertions greatly tend to remove the doubt. I cannot even imagine the arguments which would prevail upon me to accept the latter and refuse the former. Omission itself shows for a master-hand: see the magnificent passage omitted, and rightly, by Milton from the opening of his Comus.

'But when a man has published two forms of a thing, may we not judge between him and himself, and take the reading we like better?' Assuredly. Take either the Quarto or the Folio; both are Shakspere's. Take any reading from either, and defend it. But do not mix up the two, retaining what he omits along with what he inserts, and print them so. This is what the editors do—and the thing is not Shakspere's. With homage like this, no artist could be other than indignant. It is well to show every difference, even to one of spelling where it might indicate possibly a different word, but there ought to be no mingling of differences. If I prefer the reading of the Quarto to that of the Folio, as may sometimes well happen where blunders so abound, I say I prefer—I do not dare to substitute. My student shall owe nothing of his text to any but the editors of the Folio, John Heminge and Henrie Condell.

I desire to take him with me. I intend a continuous, but ever-varying, while one-ended lesson. We shall follow the play step by step, avoiding almost nothing that suggests difficulty, and noting everything that seems to throw light on the character of a person of the drama. The pointing I consider a matter to be dealt with as any one pleases—for the sake of sense, of more sense, of better sense, as much as if the text were a Greek manuscript without any division of words. This position I need not argue with anyone who has given but a cursory glance to the original page, or knows anything of printers' pointing. I hold hard by the word, for that is, or may be, grain: the pointing as we have it is merest chaff, and more likely to be wrong than right. Here also, however, I change nothing in the text, only suggest in the notes. Nor do I remark on any of the pointing where all that is required is the attention of the student.

Doubtless many will consider not a few of the notes unnecessary. But what may be unnecessary to one, may be welcome to another, and it is impossible to tell what a student may or may not know. At the same time those form a large class who imagine they know a thing when they do not understand it enough to see there is a difficulty in it: to such, an attempt at explanation must of course seem foolish.

A number in the margin refers to a passage of the play or in the notes, and is the number of the page where the passage is to be found. If the student finds, for instance, against a certain line upon page 8, the number 12, and turns to page 12, he will there find the number 8 against a certain line: the two lines or passages are to be compared, and will be found in some way parallel, or mutually explanatory.

Wherever I refer to the Quarto, I intend the 2nd Quarto—that is Shakspere's own authorized edition, published in his life-time. Where occasionally I refer to the surreptitious edition, the mere inchoation of the drama, I call it, as it is, the 1st Quarto.

Any word or phrase or stage-direction in the 2nd Quarto differing from that in the Folio, is placed on the margin in a line with the other: choice between them I generally leave to my student. Omissions are mainly given as footnotes. Each edition does something to correct the errors of the other.

I beg my companion on this journey to let Hamlet reveal himself in the play, to observe him as he assumes individuality by the concretion of characteristics. I warn him that any popular notion concerning him which he may bring with him, will be only obstructive to a perception of the true idea of the grandest of all Shakspere's presentations.

It will amuse this and that man to remark how often I speak of Hamlet as if he were a real man and not the invention of Shakspere—for indeed the Hamlet of the old story is no more that of Shakspere than a lump of coal is a diamond; but I imagine, if he tried the thing himself, he would find it hardly possible to avoid so speaking, and at the same time say what he had to say.

I give hearty thanks to the press-reader, a gentleman whose name I do not know, not only for keen watchfulness over the printing-difficulties of the book, but for saving me from several blunders in derivation.

BORDIGHERA: December, 1884.

[Transcriber's Note: In the paper original, each left-facing page contained the text of the play, with sidenotes and footnote references, and the corresponding right-facing page contained the footnotes themselves and additional commentary. In this electronic text, the play-text pages are numbered (contrary to custom in electronic texts), to allow use of the cross-references provided in the sidenotes and footnotes. In the play text, sidenotes towards the left of the page are those marginal cross-references described earlier, and sidenotes toward the right of the page are the differences noted a few paragraphs later.]

[Page 1]

THE TRAGEDIE

OF

HAMLET

PRINCE OF DENMARKE.

[Page 2]

ACTUS PRIMUS.

Enter Barnardo and Francisco two Centinels[1].

Barnardo. Who's there?

Fran.[2] Nay answer me: Stand and vnfold yourselfe.

Bar. Long liue the King.[3]

Fran. Barnardo?

Bar. He.

Fran. You come most carefully vpon your houre.

Bar. 'Tis now strook twelue, get thee to bed Francisco.

Fran. For this releefe much thankes: 'Tis [Sidenote: 42] bitter cold, And I am sicke at heart.[4]

Barn. Haue you had quiet Guard?[5]

Fran. Not a Mouse stirring.

Barn. Well, goodnight. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, the Riuals[6] of my Watch, bid them make hast.

Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

Fran. I thinke I heare them. Stand: who's there? [Sidenote: Stand ho, who is there?]

Hor. Friends to this ground.

Mar. And Leige-men to the Dane.

Fran. Giue you good night.

Mar. O farwel honest Soldier, who hath [Sidenote: souldiers] relieu'd you?

[Footnote 1: —meeting. Almost dark.]

[Footnote 2: —on the post, and with the right of challenge.]

[Footnote 3: The watchword.]

[Footnote 4: The key-note to the play—as in Macbeth: 'Fair is foul and foul is fair.' The whole nation is troubled by late events at court.]

[Footnote 5: —thinking of the apparition.]

[Footnote 6: Companions.]

[Page 4]

Fra. Barnardo ha's my place: giue you good-night. [Sidenote: hath] Exit Fran.

Mar. Holla Barnardo.

Bar. Say, what is Horatio there?

Hor. A peece of him.

Bar. Welcome Horatio, welcome good Marcellus.

Mar. What, ha's this thing appear'd againe to [Sidenote: Hor.[1] night.

Bar. I haue seene nothing.

Mar. Horatio saies, 'tis but our Fantasie,
And will not let beleefe take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seene of vs,
Therefore I haue intreated him along
With vs, to watch the minutes of this Night,
That if againe this Apparition come,
[Sidenote: 6] He may approue our eyes, and speake to it.[2]

Hor. Tush, tush, 'twill not appeare.

Bar. Sit downe a-while,
And let vs once againe assaile your eares,
That are so fortified against our Story,
What we two Nights haue seene. [Sidenote: have two nights seen]

Hor. Well, sit we downe, And let vs heare Barnardo speake of this.

Barn. Last night of all,
When yond same Starre that's Westward from the Pole
Had made his course t'illume that part of Heauen
Where now it burnes, Marcellus and my selfe,
The Bell then beating one.[3]

Mar. Peace, breake thee of: Enter the Ghost. [Sidenote: Enter Ghost] Looke where it comes againe.

Barn. In the same figure, like the King that's dead.

[Footnote 1: Better, I think; for the tone is scoffing, and Horatio is the incredulous one who has not seen it.]

[Footnote 2: —being a scholar, and able to address it as an apparition ought to be addressed—Marcellus thinking, perhaps, with others, that a ghost required Latin.]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q. 'towling one.]

[Page 6]

[Sidenote: 4] Mar. Thou art a Scholler; speake to it Horatio.

Barn. Lookes it not like the King? Marke it Horatio.
[Sidenote: Looks a not]
Hora. Most like: It harrowes me with fear and wonder.
[Sidenote: horrowes[1]

Barn. It would be spoke too.[2]

Mar. Question it Horatio. [Sidenote: Speak to it Horatio]

Hor. What art thou that vsurp'st this time of night,[3]
Together with that Faire and Warlike forme[4]
In which the Maiesty of buried Denmarke
Did sometimes[5] march: By Heauen I charge thee speake.

Mar. It is offended.[6]

Barn. See, it stalkes away.

Hor. Stay: speake; speake: I Charge thee, speake. Exit the Ghost. [Sidenote: Exit Ghost.]

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Barn. How now Horatio? You tremble and look pale: Is not this something more then Fantasie? What thinke you on't?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this beleeue Without the sensible and true auouch Of mine owne eyes.

Mar. Is it not like the King?

Hor. As thou art to thy selfe,
Such was the very Armour he had on,
When th' Ambitious Norwey combatted: [Sidenote: when he the ambitious]
So frown'd he once, when in an angry parle
He smot the sledded Pollax on the Ice.[8] [Sidenote: sleaded[7]
'Tis strange.

[Sidenote: 274] Mar. Thus twice before, and iust at this dead houre,
[Sidenote: and jump at this]

[Footnote 1: 1st Q. 'horrors mee'.]

[Footnote 2: A ghost could not speak, it was believed, until it was spoken to.]

[Footnote 3: It was intruding upon the realm of the embodied.]

[Footnote 4: None of them took it as certainly the late king: it was only clear to them that it was like him. Hence they say, 'usurp'st the forme.']

[Footnote 5: formerly.]

[Footnote 6: —at the word usurp'st.]

[Footnote 7: Also 1st Q.]

[Footnote 8: The usual interpretation is 'the sledged Poles'; but not to mention that in a parley such action would have been treacherous, there is another far more picturesque, and more befitting the angry parle, at the same time more characteristic and forcible: the king in his anger smote his loaded pole-axe on the ice. There is some uncertainty about the word sledded or sleaded (which latter suggests lead), but we have the word sledge and sledge-hammer, the smith's heaviest, and the phrase, 'a sledging blow.' The quarrel on the occasion referred to rather seems with the Norwegians (See Schmidt's Shakespeare-Lexicon: Sledded.) than with the Poles; and there would be no doubt as to the latter interpretation being the right one, were it not that the Polacke, for the Pole, or nation of the Poles, does occur in the play. That is, however, no reason why the Dane should not have carried a pole-axe, or caught one from the hand of an attendant. In both our authorities, and in the 1st Q. also, the word is pollax—as in Chaucer's Knights Tale: 'No maner schot, ne pollax, ne schort knyf,'—in the Folio alone with a capital; whereas not once in the play is the similar word that stands for the Poles used in the plural. In the 2nd Quarto there is Pollacke three times, Pollack once, Pole once; in the 1st Quarto, Polacke twice; in the Folio, Poleak twice, Polake once. The Poet seems to have avoided the plural form.]

[Page 8]

With Martiall stalke,[1] hath he gone by our Watch.

Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not: But in the grosse and scope of my Opinion, [Sidenote: mine] This boades some strange erruption to our State.

Mar. Good now sit downe, and tell me he that knowes
[Sidenote: 16] Why this same strict and most obseruant Watch,[2]
So nightly toyles the subiect of the Land,
And why such dayly Cast of Brazon Cannon
[Sidenote: And with such dayly cost]
And Forraigne Mart for Implements of warre:
Why such impresse of Ship-wrights, whose sore Taske
Do's not diuide the Sunday from the weeke,
What might be toward, that this sweaty hast[3]
Doth make the Night ioynt-Labourer with the day:
Who is't that can informe me?

Hor. That can I,
At least the whisper goes so: Our last King,
Whose Image euen but now appear'd to vs,
Was (as you know) by Fortinbras of Norway,
(Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate Pride)[4]
Dar'd to the Combate. In which, our Valiant Hamlet,
(For so this side of our knowne world esteem'd him)[5]
[Sidenote: 6] Did slay this Fortinbras: who by a Seal'd Compact,
Well ratified by Law, and Heraldrie, [Sidenote: heraldy]
Did forfeite (with his life) all those his Lands [Sidenote: these]
Which he stood seiz'd on,[6] to the Conqueror: [Sidenote: seaz'd of,]
Against the which, a Moity[7] competent
Was gaged by our King: which had return'd [Sidenote: had returne]
To the Inheritance of Fortinbras,

[Footnote 1: 1st Q. 'Marshall stalke'.]

[Footnote 2: Here is set up a frame of external relations, to inclose with fitting contrast, harmony, and suggestion, the coming show of things. 273]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q. 'sweaty march'.]

[Footnote 4: Pride that leads to emulate: the ambition to excel—not oneself, but another.]

[Footnote 5: The whole western hemisphere.]

[Footnote 6: stood possessed of.]

[Footnote 7: Used by Shakspere for a part.]

[Page 10]

Had he bin Vanquisher, as by the same Cou'nant
[Sidenote: the same comart]
And carriage of the Article designe,[1] [Sidenote: desseigne,]
His fell to Hamlet. Now sir, young Fortinbras,
Of vnimproued[2] Mettle, hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, heere and there,
Shark'd[3] vp a List of Landlesse Resolutes, [Sidenote: of lawlesse]
For Foode and Diet, to some Enterprize
That hath a stomacke in't[4]: which is no other
(And it doth well appeare vnto our State) [Sidenote: As it]
But to recouer of vs by strong hand
And termes Compulsatiue, those foresaid Lands [Sidenote: compulsatory,]
So by his Father lost: and this (I take it)
Is the maine Motiue of our Preparations,
The Sourse of this our Watch, and the cheefe head
Of this post-hast, and Romage[5] in the Land.

[A]Enter Ghost againe.

But soft, behold: Loe, where it comes againe:

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—

Bar. I thinke it be no other, but enso;
Well may it sort[6] that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch so like the King
That was and is the question of these warres.

Hora. A moth it is to trouble the mindes eye:
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Iulius fell
The graues stood tennatlesse, and the sheeted dead
Did squeake and gibber in the Roman streets[7]
As starres with traines of fier, and dewes of blood
Disasters in the sunne; and the moist starre,
Vpon whose influence Neptunes Empier stands
Was sicke almost to doomesday with eclipse.
And euen the like precurse of feare euents
As harbindgers preceading still the fates
And prologue to the Omen comming on
Haue heauen and earth together demonstrated
Vnto our Climatures and countrymen.[8]

Enter Ghost.]

[Footnote 1: French désigné.]

[Footnote 2: not proved or tried. Improvement, as we use the word, is the result of proof or trial: upon-proof-ment.]

[Footnote 3: Is shark'd related to the German scharren? Zusammen scharren—to scrape together. The Anglo-Saxon searwian is to prepare, entrap, take.]

[Footnote 4: Some enterprise of acquisition; one for the sake of getting something.]

[Footnote 5: In Scotch, remish—the noise of confused and varied movements; a row; a rampage.—Associated with French remuage?]

[Footnote 6: suit: so used in Scotland still, I think.]

[Footnote 7: Julius Caesar, act i. sc. 3, and act ii. sc. 2.]

[Footnote 8: The only suggestion I dare make for the rectifying of the confusion of this speech is, that, if the eleventh line were inserted between the fifth and sixth, there would be sense, and very nearly grammar.

and the sheeted dead
Did squeake and gibber in the Roman streets,
As harbindgers preceading still the fates;
As starres with traines of fier, and dewes of blood
(Here understand precede)
Disasters in the sunne;

The tenth will close with the twelfth line well enough.

But no one, any more than myself, will be satisfied with the suggestion. The probability is, of course, that a line has dropped out between the fifth and sixth. Anything like this would restore the connection:

The labouring heavens themselves teemed dire portent As starres &c.]

[Page 12]

Ile crosse it, though it blast me.[1] Stay Illusion:[2]
[Sidenote: It[4] spreads his armes.]
If thou hast any sound, or vse of Voyce,[3]
Speake to me. If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me; speak to me.
If thou art priuy to thy Countries Fate
(Which happily foreknowing may auoyd) Oh speake.
Or, if thou hast vp-hoorded in thy life
Extorted Treasure in the wombe of Earth,
(For which, they say, you Spirits oft walke in death) [Sidenote: your]
[Sidenote: The cocke crowes]
Speake of it. Stay, and speake. Stop it Marcellus.

Mar. Shall I strike at it with my Partizan? [Sidenote: strike it with]

Hor. Do, if it will not stand.

Barn. 'Tis heere.

Hor. 'Tis heere.

Mar. 'Tis gone. Exit Ghost[5]
We do it wrong, being so Maiesticall[6]
To offer it the shew of Violence,
For it is as the Ayre, invulnerable,
And our vaine blowes, malicious Mockery.

Barn. It was about to speake, when the Cocke crew.

Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing
Vpon a fearfull Summons. I haue heard,
The Cocke that is the Trumpet to the day, [Sidenote: to the morne,]
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding Throate[7]
Awake the God of Day: and at his warning,
Whether in Sea, or Fire, in Earth, or Ayre,
Th'extrauagant,[8] and erring[9] Spirit, hyes
To his Confine. And of the truth heerein,
This present Obiect made probation.[10]

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the Cocke.[11]

[Footnote 1: There are various tales of the blasting power of evil ghosts.]

[Footnote 2: Plain doubt, and strong.]

[Footnote 3: 'sound of voice, or use of voice': physical or mental faculty of speech.]

[Footnote 4: I judge this It a mistake for H., standing for Horatio: he would stop it.]

[Footnote 5: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 6: 'As we cannot hurt it, our blows are a mockery; and it is wrong to mock anything so majestic': For belongs to shew; 'We do it wrong, being so majestical, to offer it what is but a show of violence, for it is, &c.']

[Footnote 7: 1st Q. 'his earely and shrill crowing throate.']

[Footnote 8: straying beyond bounds.]

[Footnote 9: wandering.]

[Footnote 10: 'gave proof.']

[Footnote 11: This line said thoughtfully—as the text of the observation following it. From the eerie discomfort of their position, Marcellus takes refuge in the thought of the Saviour's birth into the haunted world, bringing sweet law, restraint, and health.]

[Page 14]

Some sayes, that euer 'gainst that Season comes [Sidenote: say]
Wherein our Sauiours Birth is celebrated,
The Bird of Dawning singeth all night long: [Sidenote: This bird]
And then (they say) no Spirit can walke abroad,
[Sidenote: spirit dare sturre]
The nights are wholsome, then no Planets strike,
No Faiery talkes, nor Witch hath power to Charme:
[Sidenote: fairy takes,[1]
So hallow'd, and so gracious is the time. [Sidenote: is that time.]

Hor. So haue I heard, and do in part beleeue it.
But looke, the Morne in Russet mantle clad,
Walkes o're the dew of yon high Easterne Hill, [Sidenote: Eastward[2]
Breake we our Watch vp, and by my aduice [Sidenote: advise]
Let vs impart what we haue scene to night
Vnto yong Hamlet. For vpon my life,
This Spirit dumbe to vs, will speake to him:
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needfull in our Loues, fitting our Duty?

[Sidenote: 30] Mar. Let do't I pray, and I this morning know Where we shall finde him most conueniently. [Sidenote: convenient.] Exeunt.

SCENA SECUNDA[3]

Enter Claudius King of Denmarke. Gertrude the
Queene, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, and his Sister
Ophelia, Lords Attendant.[4]
[Sidenote: Florish. Enter Claudius, King of Denmarke,
Gertrad the Queene, Counsaile: as Polonius, and his
sonne Laertes, Hamelt Cum Abijs.]

King. Though yet of Hamlet our deere Brothers death
[Sidenote: Claud.]
The memory be greene: and that it vs befitted
To beare our hearts in greefe, and our whole Kingdome
To be contracted in one brow of woe:
Yet so farre hath Discretion fought with Nature,
That we with wisest sorrow thinke on him,

[Footnote 1: Does it mean—carries off any child, leaving a changeling? or does it mean—affect with evil, as a disease might infect or take?]

[Footnote 2: 1st Q. 'hie mountaine top,']

[Footnote 3: In neither Q.]

[Footnote 4: The first court after the marriage.]

[Page 16]

Together with remembrance of our selues.
Therefore our sometimes Sister, now our Queen,
Th'Imperiall Ioyntresse of this warlike State, [Sidenote: to this]
Haue we, as 'twere, with a defeated ioy,
With one Auspicious, and one Dropping eye,
[Sidenote: an auspitious and a]
With mirth in Funerall, and with Dirge in Marriage,
In equall Scale weighing Delight and Dole[1]
Taken to Wife; nor haue we heerein barr'd[2]
Your better Wisedomes, which haue freely gone
With this affaire along, for all our Thankes.
[Sidenote: 8] Now followes, that you know young Fortinbras,[3]
Holding a weake supposall of our worth;
Or thinking by our late deere Brothers death,
Our State to be disioynt, and out of Frame,
Colleagued with the dreame of his Aduantage;[4] [Sidenote: this dreame]
He hath not fayl'd to pester vs with Message,
Importing the surrender of those Lands
Lost by his Father: with all Bonds of Law [Sidenote: bands]
To our most valiant Brother. So much for him.

Enter Voltemand and Cornelius.[5]

Now for our selfe, and for this time of meeting
Thus much the businesse is. We haue heere writ
To Norway, Vncle of young Fortinbras,
Who Impotent and Bedrid, scarsely heares
Of this his Nephewes purpose, to suppresse
His further gate[6] heerein. In that the Leuies,
The Lists, and full proportions are all made
Out of his subiect: and we heere dispatch
You good Cornelius, and you Voltemand,
For bearing of this greeting to old Norway, [Sidenote: bearers]
Giuing to you no further personall power
To businesse with the King, more then the scope
Of these dilated Articles allow:[7] [Sidenote: delated[8]
Farewell and let your hast commend your duty.[9]

[Footnote 1: weighing out an equal quantity of each.]

[Footnote 2: Like crossed.]

[Footnote 3: 'Now follows—that (which) you know—young
Fortinbras:—']

[Footnote 4: Colleagued agrees with supposall. The preceding two lines may be regarded as somewhat parenthetical. Dream of advantage—hope of gain.]

[Footnote 5: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 6: going; advance. Note in Norway also, as well as in
Denmark, the succession of the brother.]

[Footnote 7: (giving them papers).]

[Footnote 8: Which of these is right, I cannot tell. Dilated means expanded, and would refer to _the scope; delated means committed—to them, to limit them.]

[Footnote 9: idea of duty.]

[Page 18]

Volt. In that, and all things, will we shew our duty.

King. We doubt it nothing, heartily farewell.

[Sidenote: 74] [1]Exit Voltemand and Cornelius.

And now Laertes, what's the newes with you?
You told vs of some suite. What is't Laertes?
You cannot speake of Reason to the Dane,
And loose your voyce. What would'st thou beg Laertes,
That shall not be my Offer, not thy Asking?[2]
The Head is not more Natiue to the Heart,
The Hand more Instrumentall to the Mouth,
Then is the Throne of Denmarke to thy Father.[3]
What would'st thou haue Laertes?

Laer. Dread my Lord, [Sidenote: My dread]
Your leaue and fauour to returne to France,
From whence, though willingly I came to Denmarke
To shew my duty in your Coronation,
Yet now I must confesse, that duty done,
[Sidenote: 22] My thoughts and wishes bend againe towards toward
France,[4]
And bow them to your gracious leaue and pardon.

King. Haue you your Fathers leaue? What sayes Pollonius?

[A] Pol. He hath my Lord:
I do beseech you giue him leaue to go.

King. Take thy faire houre Laertes, time be thine, And thy best graces spend it at thy will: But now my Cosin Hamlet, and my Sonne?

[Footnote A: In the Quarto:—

Polo. Hath[5] my Lord wroung from me my slowe leaue
By laboursome petition, and at last
Vpon his will I seald my hard consent,[6]
I doe beseech you giue him leaue to goe.]

[Footnote 1: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 2: 'Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.'—Isaiah, lxv. 24.]

[Footnote 3: The villain king courts his courtiers.]

[Footnote 4: He had been educated there. Compare 23. But it would seem rather to the court than the university he desired to return. See his father's instructions, 38.]

[Footnote 5: H'ath—a contraction for He hath.]

[Footnote 6: A play upon the act of sealing a will with wax.]

[Page 20]

Ham. A little more then kin, and lesse then kinde.[1]

King. How is it that the Clouds still hang on you?

Ham. Not so my Lord, I am too much i'th'Sun.[2]
[Sidenote: so much my … in the sonne.]

Queen. Good Hamlet cast thy nightly colour off,[4]
[Sidenote: nighted[3]
And let thine eye looke like a Friend on Denmarke.
Do not for euer with thy veyled[5] lids [Sidenote: vailed]
Seeke for thy Noble Father in the dust;
Thou know'st 'tis common, all that liues must dye,
Passing through Nature, to Eternity.

Ham. I Madam, it is common.[6]

Queen. If it be; Why seemes it so particular with thee.

Ham. Seemes Madam? Nay, it is: I know not Seemes:[7]
'Tis not alone my Inky Cloake (good Mother)
[Sidenote: cloake coold mother [8]
Nor Customary suites of solemne Blacke,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitfull Riuer in the Eye,
Nor the deiected hauiour of the Visage,
Together with all Formes, Moods, shewes of Griefe,
[Sidenote: moodes, chapes of]
That can denote me truly. These indeed Seeme,[9] [Sidenote: deuote]
For they are actions that a man might[10] play:
But I haue that Within, which passeth show; [Sidenote: passes]
These, but the Trappings, and the Suites of woe.

King. 'Tis sweet and commendable
In your Nature Hamlet,
To giue these mourning duties to your Father:[11]
But you must know, your Father lost a Father,
That Father lost, lost his, and the Suruiuer bound
In filiall Obligation, for some terme
To do obsequious[12] Sorrow. But to perseuer
In obstinate Condolement, is a course

[Footnote 1: An aside. Hamlet's first utterance is of dislike to his uncle. He is more than kin through his unwelcome marriage—less than kind by the difference in their natures. To be kind is to behave as one kinned or related. But the word here is the noun, and means nature, or sort by birth.]

[Footnote 2: A word-play may be here intended between sun and son: a little more than kin—too much i' th' Son. So George Herbert:

For when he sees my ways, I die;
But I have got his Son, and he hath none;

and Dr. Donne:

at my death thy Son Shall shine, as he shines now and heretofore.]

[Footnote 3: 'Wintred garments'—As You Like It, iii. 2.]

[Footnote 4: He is the only one who has not for the wedding put off his mourning.]

[Footnote 5: lowered, or cast down: Fr. avaler, to lower.]

[Footnote 6: 'Plainly you treat it as a common matter—a thing of no significance!' I is constantly used for ay, yes.]

[Footnote 7: He pounces on the word seems.]

[Footnote 8: Not unfrequently the type would appear to have been set up from dictation.]

[Footnote 9: They are things of the outside, and must seem, for they are capable of being imitated; they are the natural shows of grief. But he has that in him which cannot show or seem, because nothing can represent it. These are 'the Trappings and the Suites of woe;' they fitly represent woe, but they cannot shadow forth that which is within him—a something different from woe, far beyond it and worse, passing all reach of embodiment and manifestation. What this something is, comes out the moment he is left by himself.]

[Footnote 10: The emphasis is on might.]

[Footnote 11: Both his uncle and his mother decline to understand him. They will have it he mourns the death of his father, though they must at least suspect another cause for his grief. Note the intellectual mastery of the hypocrite—which accounts for his success.]

[Footnote 12: belonging to obsequies.]

[Page 22]

Of impious stubbornnesse. Tis vnmanly greefe,
It shewes a will most incorrect to Heauen,
A Heart vnfortified, a Minde impatient, [Sidenote: or minde]
An Vnderstanding simple, and vnschool'd:
For, what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sence,
Why should we in our peeuish Opposition
Take it to heart? Fye, 'tis a fault to Heauen,
A fault against the Dead, a fault to Nature,
To Reason most absurd, whose common Theame
Is death of Fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first Coarse,[1] till he that dyed to day, [Sidenote: course]
This must be so. We pray you throw to earth
This vnpreuayling woe, and thinke of vs
As of a Father; For let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our Throne,[2]
And with no lesse Nobility of Loue,
Then that which deerest Father beares his Sonne,
Do I impart towards you. For your intent [Sidenote: toward]
[Sidenote: 18] In going backe to Schoole in Wittenberg,[3]
It is most retrograde to our desire: [Sidenote: retrogard]
And we beseech you, bend you to remaine
Heere in the cheere and comfort of our eye,
Our cheefest Courtier Cosin, and our Sonne.

Qu. Let not thy Mother lose her Prayers Hamlet: [Sidenote: loose] I prythee stay with vs, go not to Wittenberg. [Sidenote: pray thee]

Ham. I shall in all my best Obey you Madam.[4]

King. Why 'tis a louing, and a faire Reply,
Be as our selfe in Denmarke. Madam come,
This gentle and vnforc'd accord of Hamlet[5]
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No iocond health that Denmarke drinkes to day,
[Sidenote: 44] But the great Cannon to the Clowds shall tell,

[Footnote 1: Corpse.]

[Footnote 2: —seeking to propitiate him with the hope that his succession had been but postponed by his uncle's election.]

[Footnote 3: Note that Hamlet was educated in Germany—at Wittenberg, the university where in 1508 Luther was appointed professor of Philosophy. Compare 19. There was love of study as well as disgust with home in his desire to return to Schoole: this from what we know of him afterwards.]

[Footnote 4: Emphasis on obey. A light on the character of Hamlet.]

[Footnote 5: He takes it, or pretends to take it, for far more than it was. He desires friendly relations with Hamlet.]

[Page 24]

And the Kings Rouce,[1] the Heauens shall bruite againe, Respeaking earthly Thunder. Come away. Exeunt [Sidenote: Florish. Exeunt all but Hamlet.]

Manet Hamlet.

[2]Ham. Oh that this too too solid Flesh, would melt,
[Sidenote: sallied flesh[3]
Thaw, and resolue it selfe into a Dew:
[Sidenote: 125,247,260] Or that the Euerlasting had not fixt
[Sidenote: 121 bis] His Cannon 'gainst Selfe-slaughter. O God, O God!
[Sidenote: seale slaughter, o God, God,]
How weary, stale, flat, and vnprofitable [Sidenote: wary]
Seemes to me all the vses of this world? [Sidenote: seeme]
Fie on't? Oh fie, fie, 'tis an vnweeded Garden [Sidenote: ah fie,]
That growes to Seed: Things rank, and grosse in Nature
Possesse it meerely. That it should come to this:
[Sidenote: meerely that it should come thus]
But two months dead[4]: Nay, not so much; not two,
So excellent a King, that was to this
Hiperion to a Satyre: so louing to my Mother,
That he might not beteene the windes of heauen [Sidenote: beteeme[5]
Visit her face too roughly. Heauen and Earth
Must I remember: why she would hang on him, [Sidenote: should]
As if encrease of Appetite had growne
By what it fed on; and yet within a month?
Let me not thinke on't: Frailty, thy name is woman.[6]
A little Month, or ere those shooes were old,
With which she followed my poore Fathers body
Like Niobe, all teares. Why she, euen she.[7]
(O Heauen! A beast that wants discourse[8] of Reason [Sidenote: O God]
Would haue mourn'd longer) married with mine Vnkle, [Sidenote: my]

[Footnote 1: German Rausch, drunkenness. 44, 68]

[Footnote 2: A soliloquy is as the drawing called a section of a thing: it shows the inside of the man. Soliloquy is only rare, not unnatural, and in art serves to reveal more of nature. In the drama it is the lifting of a veil through which dialogue passes. The scene is for the moment shifted into the lonely spiritual world, and here we begin to know Hamlet. Such is his wretchedness, both in mind and circumstance, that he could well wish to vanish from the world. The suggestion of suicide, however, he dismisses at once—with a momentary regret, it is true—but he dismisses it—as against the will of God to whom he appeals in his misery. The cause of his misery is now made plain to us—his trouble that passes show, deprives life of its interest, and renders the world a disgust to him. There is no lamentation over his father's death, so dwelt upon by the king; for loving grief does not crush. Far less could his uncle's sharp practice, in scheming for his own election during Hamlet's absence, have wrought in a philosopher like him such an effect. The one makes him sorrowful, the other might well annoy him, but neither could render him unhappy: his misery lies at his mother's door; it is her conduct that has put out the light of her son's life. She who had been to him the type of all excellence, she whom his father had idolized, has within a month of his death married his uncle, and is living in habitual incest—for as such, a marriage of the kind was then unanimously regarded. To Hamlet's condition and behaviour, his mother, her past and her present, is the only and sufficing key. His very idea of unity had been rent in twain.]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q. 'too much grieu'd and sallied flesh.' Sallied, sullied: compare sallets, 67, 103. I have a strong suspicion that sallied and not solid is the true word. It comes nearer the depth of Hamlet's mood.]

[Footnote 4: Two months at the present moment.]

[Footnote 5: This is the word all the editors take: which is right, I do not know; I doubt if either is. The word in A Midsummer Night's Dream, act i. sc. 1—

Belike for want of rain; which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes—

I cannot believe the same word. The latter means produce for, as from the place of origin. The word, in the sense necessary to this passage, is not, so far as I know, to be found anywhere else. I have no suggestion to make.]

[Footnote 6: From his mother he generalizes to woman. After having believed in such a mother, it may well be hard for a man to believe in any woman.]

[Footnote 7: Q. omits 'euen she.']

[Footnote 8: the going abroad among things.]

[Page 26]

My Fathers Brother: but no more like my Father,
Then I to Hercules. Within a Moneth?
Ere yet the salt of most vnrighteous Teares
Had left the flushing of her gauled eyes, [Sidenote: in her]
She married. O most wicked speed, to post[1]
With such dexterity to Incestuous sheets:
It is not, nor it cannot come to good,
But breake my heart, for I must hold my tongue.[2]

Enter Horatio, Barnard, and Marcellus.
[Sidenote: Marcellus, and Bernardo.]

Hor. Haile to your Lordship.[3]

Ham. I am glad to see you well: Horatio, or I do forget my selfe.

Hor. The same my Lord, And your poore Seruant euer.

[Sidenote: 134] Ham. [4]Sir my good friend,
Ile change that name with you:[5]
And what make you from Wittenberg Horatio?[6]
Marcellus.[7]

Mar. My good Lord.

Ham. I am very glad to see you: good euen Sir.[8] But what in faith make you from Wittemberge?

Hor. A truant disposition, good my Lord.[9]

Ham. I would not haue your Enemy say so;[10] [Sidenote: not heare]
Nor shall you doe mine eare that violence,[11] [Sidenote: my eare]
[Sidenote: 134] To make it truster of your owne report
Against your selfe. I know you are no Truant:
But what is your affaire in Elsenour?
Wee'l teach you to drinke deepe, ere you depart.[12]
[Sidenote: you for to drinke ere]

Hor. My Lord, I came to see your Fathers Funerall.

Ham. I pray thee doe not mock me (fellow Student) [Sidenote: pre thee] I thinke it was to see my Mothers Wedding. [Sidenote: was to my]

[Footnote 1: I suggest the pointing:

speed! To post … sheets!]

[Footnote 2: Fit moment for the entrance of his father's messengers.]

[Footnote 3: They do not seem to have been intimate before, though we know from Hamlet's speech (134) that he had had the greatest respect for Horatio. The small degree of doubt in Hamlet's recognition of his friend is due to the darkness, and the unexpectedness of his appearance.]

[Footnote 4: 1st Q. 'O my good friend, I change, &c.' This would leave it doubtful whether he wished to exchange servant or friend; but 'Sir, my good friend,' correcting Horatio, makes his intent plain.]

[Footnote 5: Emphasis on that: 'I will exchange the name of friend with you.']

[Footnote 6: 'What are you doing from—out of, away from—Wittenberg?']

[Footnote 7: In recognition: the word belongs to Hamlet's speech.]

[Footnote 8: Point thus: 'you.—Good even, sir.'—to Barnardo, whom he does not know.]

[Footnote 9: An ungrammatical reply. He does not wish to give the real, painful answer, and so replies confusedly, as if he had been asked, 'What makes you?' instead of, 'What do you make?']

[Footnote 10: '—I should know how to answer him.']

[Footnote 11: Emphasis on you.]

[Footnote 12: Said with contempt for his surroundings.]

[Page 28]

Hor. Indeed my Lord, it followed hard vpon.

Ham. Thrift, thrift Horatio: the Funerall Bakt-meats
Did coldly furnish forth the Marriage Tables;
Would I had met my dearest foe in heauen,[1]
Ere I had euer seerie that day Horatio.[2] [Sidenote: Or ever I had]
My father, me thinkes I see my father.

Hor. Oh where my Lord? [Sidenote: Where my]

Ham. In my minds eye (Horatio)[3]

Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly King. [Sidenote: once, a was]

Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all: [Sidenote: A was a man] I shall not look vpon his like againe.

Hor. My Lord, I thinke I saw him yesternight.

Ham. Saw? Who?[4]

Hor. My Lord, the King your Father.

Ham. The King my Father?[5]

Hor. Season[6] your admiration for a while
With an attent eare;[7] till I may deliuer
Vpon the witnesse of these Gentlemen,
This maruell to you.

Ham. For Heauens loue let me heare. [Sidenote: God's love]

Hor. Two nights together, had these Gentlemen
(Marcellus and Barnardo) on their Watch
In the dead wast and middle of the night[8]
Beene thus encountred. A figure like your Father,[9]
Arm'd at all points exactly, Cap a Pe,[10] [Sidenote: Armed at poynt]
Appeares before them, and with sollemne march
Goes slow and stately: By them thrice he walkt,
[Sidenote: stately by them; thrice]
By their opprest and feare-surprized eyes,
Within his Truncheons length; whilst they bestil'd
[Sidenote: they distill'd[11]
Almost to Ielly with the Act of feare,[12]
Stand dumbe and speake not to him. This to me
In dreadfull[13] secrecie impart they did,
And I with them the third Night kept the Watch,
Whereas[14] they had deliuer'd both in time,