The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by George MacDonald (big ebook reader TXT) 📕

136, 156, 178] To put an Anticke disposition on:)[8]
[Sidenote: on] That you at such time seeing me, neuer shall [Sidenote: times] With Armes encombred thus, or thus, head shake;
[Sidenote: or this head]

[Footnote 1: He feels his honour touched.]

[Footnote 2: The Ghost's interference heightens Hamlet's agitation. If he does not talk, laugh, jest, it will overcome him. Also he must not show that he believes it his father's ghost: that must be kept to himself-for the present at least. He shows it therefore no respect-treats the whole thing humorously, so avoiding, or at least parrying question. It is all he can do to keep the mastery of himself, dodging horror with half-forced, half-hysterical laughter. Yet is he all the time intellectually on the alert. See how, instantly active, he makes use of the voice from beneath to enforce his requisition of silence. Very speedily too he grows quiet: a glimmer of light as to the course of action necessary to him has begun to break upon him: it breaks from his own wild and disjointed behaviour in the attempt to hide the conflict of his feelings-which suggests to him the idea of shrouding himself, as did David at the court of the Philistines, in the cloak of madness: thereby protected from the full force of what suspicion any absorption of manner or outburst of feeling must occasion, he may win time to lay his plans. Note how, in the midst of his horror, he is yet able to think, plan, resolve.]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q. 'The Gost under the stage.' ]

[Footnote 4: While Hamlet seems to take it so coolly, the others have fled in terror from the spot. He goes to them. Their fear must be what, on the two occasions after, makes him shift to another place when the Ghost speaks.]

[Footnote 5: Now at once he consents.]

[Footnote 6: In the Quarto this and the next line are transposed.]

[Footnote 7: What idea is involved as the cause of the Ghost's thus interfering?-That he too sees what difficulties must encompass the carrying out of his behest, and what absolute secrecy is thereto essential.]

[Footnote 8: This idea, hardly yet a resolve, he afterwards carries out so well, that he deceives not only king and queen and court, but the most of his critics ever since: to this day they believe him mad. Such must have studied in the play a phantom of their own misconception, and can never have seen the Hamlet of Shakspere. Thus prejudiced, they mistake also the effects of moral and spiritual perturbation and misery for further sign of intellectual disorder-even for proof of moral weakness, placing them in the same category with the symptoms of the insanity which he simulates, and by which they are deluded.]

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Or by pronouncing of some doubtfull Phrase; As well, we know, or we could and if we would,
[Sidenote: As well, well, we] Or if we list to speake; or there be and if there might,
[Sidenote: if they might] Or such ambiguous giuing out to note, [Sidenote: note] That you know ought of me; this not to doe:
[Sidenote: me, this doe sweare,] So grace and mercy at your most neede helpe you: Sweare.[1]

Ghost . Sweare.[2]

Ham . Rest, rest perturbed Spirit[3]: so Gentlemen, With all my loue I doe commend me to you; And what so poore a man as Hamlet is, May doe t'expresse his loue and friending to you, God willing shall not lacke: let vs goe in together, And still your fingers on your lippes I pray, The time is out of ioynt: Oh cursed spight,[4] [Sidenote: 126] That euer I was borne to set it right. Nay, come let's goe together. Exeunt. [5]

* * * * *


SUMMARY OF ACT I.


This much of Hamlet we have now learned: he is a thoughtful man, a genuine student, little acquainted with the world save through books, and a lover of his kind. His university life at Wittenberg is suddenly interrupted by a call to the funeral of his father, whom he dearly loves and honours. Ere he reaches Denmark, his uncle Claudius has contrived, in an election (202, 250, 272) probably hastened and secretly influenced, to gain the voice of the representatives at least of the people, and ascend the throne. Hence his position must have been an irksome one from the first; but, within a month of his father's death, his mother's marriage with his uncle-a relation universally regarded as incestuous-plunges him in the deepest misery. The play introduces him at the first court held after the wedding. He is attired in the mourning of his father's funeral, which he had not laid aside for the wedding. His aspect is of absolute dejection, and he appears in a company for which he is so unfit only for the sake of desiring permission to leave the court, and go back to his studies at Wittenberg.[A] Left to himself, he breaks out in agonized and indignant lamentation over his mother's conduct, dwelling mainly on her disregard of his father's memory. Her conduct and his partial discovery of her character, is the sole cause of his misery. In such his mood, Horatio, a fellow-student, brings him word that his father's spirit walks at night. He watches for the Ghost, and receives from him a frightful report of his present condition, into which, he tells him, he was cast by the murderous hand of his brother, with whom his wife had been guilty of adultery. He enjoins him to put a stop to the crime in which they are now living, by taking vengeance on his uncle. Uncertain at the moment how to act, and dreading the consequences of rousing suspicion by the perturbation which he could not but betray, he grasps at the sudden idea of affecting madness. We have learned also Hamlet's relation to Ophelia, the daughter of the selfish, prating, busy Polonius, who, with his son Laertes, is destined to work out the earthly fate of Hamlet. Of Laertes, as yet, we only know that he prates like his father, is self-confident, and was educated at Paris, whither he has returned. Of Ophelia we know nothing but that she is gentle, and that she is fond of Hamlet, whose attentions she has encouraged, but with whom, upon her father's severe remonstrance, she is ready, outwardly at least, to break.

[Footnote A: Roger Ascham, in his Scholemaster , if I mistake not, sets the age, up to which a man should be under tutors, at twenty-nine.]

[Footnote 1: 'Sweare' not in Quarto .]

[Footnote 2: They do not this time shift their ground, but swear-in dumb show.]

[Footnote 3: -for now they had obeyed his command and sworn secrecy.]

[Footnote 4: 'cursed spight'-not merely that he had been born to do hangman's work, but that he should have been born at all-of a mother whose crime against his father had brought upon him the wretched necessity which must proclaim her ignominy. Let the student do his best to realize the condition of Hamlet's heart and mind in relation to his mother.]

[Footnote: 5 This first act occupies part of a night, a day, and part of the next night.]

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ACTUS SECUNDUS.[1]


Enter Polonius, and Reynoldo.
[Sidenote: Enter old Polonius, with his man, or two. ]

Polon. Giue him his money, and these notes Reynoldo .[2]
[Sidenote: this money]

Reynol. I will my Lord.

Polon. You shall doe maruels wisely: good Reynoldo ,
[Sidenote: meruiles] Before you visite him you make inquiry
[Sidenote: him, to make inquire] Of his behauiour.[3]

Reynol. My Lord, I did intend it.

Polon. Marry, well said; Very well said. Looke you Sir, Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris; And how, and who; what meanes; and where they keepe: What company, at what expence: and finding By this encompassement and drift of question, That they doe know my sonne: Come you more neerer[4] Then your particular demands will touch it, Take you as 'twere some distant knowledge of him, And thus I know his father and his friends, [Sidenote: As thus] And in part him. Doe you marke this Reynoldo ?

Reynol. I, very well my Lord.

Polon. And in part him, but you may say not well; But if't be hee I meane, hees very wilde; Addicted so and so; and there put on him What forgeries you please: marry, none so ranke, As may dishonour him; take heed of that: But Sir, such wanton, wild, and vsuall slips, As are Companions noted and most knowne To youth and liberty.

[Footnote 1: Not in Quarto.

Between this act and the former, sufficient time has passed to allow the ambassadors