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

to go to Norway and return: 74. See 138, and what Hamlet says of the time since his father's death, 24, by which together the interval seems indicated as about two months, though surely so much time was not necessary.

Cause and effect must be truly presented; time and space are mere accidents, and of small consequence in the drama, whose very idea is compression for the sake of presentation. All that is necessary in regard to time is, that, either by the act-pause, or the intervention of a fresh scene, the passing of it should be indicated.

This second act occupies the forenoon of one day.]

[Footnote 2: 1st Q.

Montano , here, these letters to my sonne,
And this same mony with my blessing to him,
And bid him ply his learning good Montano .]

[Footnote 3: The father has no confidence in the son, and rightly, for both are unworthy: he turns on him the cunning of the courtier, and sends a spy on his behaviour. The looseness of his own principles comes out very clear in his anxieties about his son; and, having learned the ideas of the father as to what becomes a gentleman, we are not surprised to find the son such as he afterwards shows himself. Till the end approaches, we hear no more of Laertes, nor is more necessary; but without this scene we should have been unprepared for his vileness.]

[Footnote 4: Point thus : 'son, come you more nearer; then &c.' The
then here does not stand for than , and to change it to than makes at once a contradiction. The sense is: 'Having put your general questions first, and been answered to your purpose, then your particular demands will come in, and be of service; they will reach to the point- will touch it .' The it is impersonal. After it should come a period.]

[Page 66]

Reynol. As gaming my Lord.

Polon. I, or drinking, fencing, swearing, Quarelling, drabbing. You may goe so farre.

Reynol. My Lord that would dishonour him.

Polon. Faith no, as you may season it in the charge;[1]
[Sidenote: Fayth as you] You must not put another scandall on him, That hee is open to Incontinencie;[2] That's not my meaning: but breath his faults so quaintly, That they may seeme the taints of liberty; The flash and out-breake of a fiery minde, A sauagenes in vnreclaim'd[3] bloud of generall assault.[4]

Reynol. But my good Lord.[5]

Polon. Wherefore should you doe this?[6]

Reynol. I my Lord, I would know that.

Polon. Marry Sir, heere's my drift, And I belieue it is a fetch of warrant:[7] [Sidenote: of wit,] You laying these slight sulleyes[8] on my Sonne,
[Sidenote: sallies[8]] As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i'th'working:
[Sidenote: soiled with working,] Marke you your party in conuerse; him you would sound, Hauing euer seene. In the prenominate crimes, [Sidenote: seene in the] The youth you breath of guilty, be assur'd He closes with you in this consequence: Good sir, or so, or friend, or Gentleman. According to the Phrase and the Addition,[9] [Sidenote: phrase or the] Of man and Country.

Reynol. Very good my Lord.

Polon. And then Sir does he this?
[Sidenote: doos a this a doos, what was I ] He does: what was I about to say? I was about to say somthing: where did I leaue?
[Sidenote: By the masse I was]

Reynol. At closes in the consequence: At friend, or so, and Gentleman.[10]

[Footnote 1: 1st Q.

I faith not a whit, no not a whit,

As you may bridle it not disparage him a iote.]

[Footnote 2: This may well seem prating inconsistency, but I suppose means that he must not be represented as without moderation in his wickedness.]

[Footnote 3: Untamed , as a hawk.]

[Footnote 4: The lines are properly arranged in Q .

A sauagenes in vnreclamed blood,
Of generall assault.

-that is, 'which assails all.']

[Footnote 5: Here a hesitating pause.]

[Footnote 6: -with the expression of, 'Is that what you would say?']

[Footnote 7: 'a fetch with warrant for it'-a justifiable trick.]

[Footnote 8: Compare sallied , 25, both Quartos; sallets 67, 103; and see soil'd , next line.]

[Footnote 9: 'Addition,' epithet of courtesy in address.]

[Footnote 10: Q . has not this line]

[Page 68]

Polon. At closes in the consequence, I marry, He closes with you thus. I know the Gentleman,
[Sidenote: He closes thus,] I saw him yesterday, or tother day; [Sidenote: th'other] Or then or then, with such and such; and as you say,
[Sidenote: or such,] [Sidenote: 25] There was he gaming, there o'retooke in's Rouse,
[Sidenote: was a gaming there, or tooke] There falling out at Tennis; or perchance, I saw him enter such a house of saile; [Sidenote: sale,]
Videlicet , a Brothell, or so forth. See you now; Your bait of falshood, takes this Cape of truth;
[Sidenote: take this carpe] And thus doe we of wisedome and of reach[1] With windlesses,[2] and with assaies of Bias, By indirections finde directions out: So by my former Lecture and aduice Shall you my Sonne; you haue me, haue you not?

Reynol. My Lord I haue.

Polon. God buy you; fare you well, [Sidenote: ye | ye]

Reynol. Good my Lord.

Polon. Obserue his inclination in your selfe.[3]

Reynol. I shall my Lord.

Polon. And let him[4] plye his Musicke.

Reynol. Well, my Lord. Exit .

Enter Ophelia .

Polon . Farewell: How now Ophelia , what's the matter?

Ophe . Alas my Lord, I haue beene so affrighted.
[Sidenote: O my Lord, my Lord,]

Polon . With what, in the name of Heauen?
[Sidenote: i'th name of God?]

Ophe . My Lord, as I was sowing in my Chamber, [Sidenote: closset,] Lord Hamlet with his doublet all vnbrac'd,[5] No hat vpon his head, his stockings foul'd, Vngartred, and downe giued[6] to his Anckle, Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, And with a looke so pitious in purport, As if he had been loosed out of hell,

[Footnote 1: of far reaching mind.]

[Footnote 2: The word windlaces is explained in the dictionaries as
shifts, subtleties -but apparently on the sole authority of this passage. There must be a figure in windlesses , as well as in assaies of Bias , which is a phrase plain enough to bowlers: the trying of other directions than that of the jack , in the endeavour to come at one with the law of the bowl's bias. I find wanlass a term in hunting: it had to do with driving game to a given point-whether in part by getting to windward of it, I cannot tell. The word may come of the verb wind, from its meaning ' to manage by shifts or expedients ': Barclay . As he has spoken of fishing, could the windlesses refer to any little instrument such as now used upon a fishing-rod? I do not think it. And how do the words windlesses and indirections come together? Was a windless some contrivance for determining how the wind blew? I bethink me that a thin withered straw is in Scotland called a windlestrae : perhaps such straws were thrown up to find out 'by indirection' the direction of the wind.

The press-reader sends me two valuable quotations, through Latham's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, from Dr. H. Hammond (1605-1660), in which windlass is used as a verb:-

'A skilful woodsman, by windlassing, presently gets a shoot, which, without taking a compass, and thereby a commodious stand, he could never have obtained.'

'She is not so much at leasure as to windlace, or use craft, to satisfy them.'

To windlace seems then to mean 'to