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

a relief to him to speak the truth under the cloak of madness-ravingly. He has no one to whom to open his heart: what lies there he feels too terrible for even the eye of Horatio. He has not apparently told him as yet more than the tale of his father's murder.]

[Footnote 4: Above, in Quarto .]

[Footnote 5: In this and all like utterances of Hamlet, we see what worm it is that lies gnawing at his heart.]

[Footnote 6: This is a slip in the Quarto -rectified in the Folio : his daughter was not present.]

[Page 90]

newes is not true.[1] [2] Let me question more in particular: what haue you my good friends, deserued at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to Prison hither?

Guil . Prison, my Lord?

Ham . Denmark's a Prison.

Rosin . Then is the World one.

Ham . A goodly one, in which there are many Confines, Wards, and Dungeons; Denmarke being one o'th'worst.

Rosin . We thinke not so my Lord.

Ham . Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so[3]: to me it is a prison.

Rosin . Why then your Ambition makes it one: 'tis too narrow for your minde.[4]

Ham . O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count my selfe a King of infinite space; were it not that I haue bad dreames.

Guil . Which dreames indeed are Ambition: for the very substance[5] of the Ambitious, is meerely the shadow of a Dreame.

Ham . A dreame it selfe is but a shadow.

Rosin . Truely, and I hold Ambition of so ayry and light a quality, that it is but a shadowes shadow.

Ham . Then are our Beggers bodies; and our Monarchs and out-stretcht Heroes the Beggers Shadowes: shall wee to th'Court: for, by my fey[6] I cannot reason?[7]

Both . Wee'l wait vpon you.

Ham . No such matter.[8] I will not sort you with the rest of my seruants: for to speake to you like an honest man: I am most dreadfully attended;[9] but in the beaten way of friendship,[10] [Sidenote: But in]

What make you at Elsonower ?

[Footnote 1: 'it is not true that the world is grown honest': he doubts themselves. His eye is sharper because his heart is sorer since he left Wittenberg. He proceeds to examine them.]

[Footnote 2: This passage, beginning with 'Let me question,' and ending with 'dreadfully attended,' is not in the Quarto .

Who inserted in the Folio this and other passages? Was it or was it not Shakspere? Beyond a doubt they are Shakspere's all. Then who omitted those omitted? Was Shakspere incapable of refusing any of his own work? Or would these editors, who profess to have all opportunity, and who, belonging to the theatre, must have had the best of opportunities, have desired or dared to omit what far more painstaking editors have since presumed, though out of reverence, to restore?]

[Footnote 3: 'but it is thinking that makes it so:']

[Footnote 4: -feeling after the cause of Hamlet's strangeness, and following the readiest suggestion, that of chagrin at missing the succession.]

[Footnote 5: objects and aims.]

[Footnote 6: foi .]

[Footnote 7: Does he choose beggars as the representatives of substance because they lack ambition-that being shadow? Or does he take them as the shadows of humanity, that, following Rosincrance, he may get their shadows, the shadows therefore of shadows, to parallel monarchs and
heroes ? But he is not satisfied with his own analogue-therefore will to the court, where good logic is not wanted-where indeed he knows a hellish lack of reason.]

[Footnote 8: 'On no account.']

[Footnote 9: 'I have very bad servants.' Perhaps he judges his servants spies upon him. Or might he mean that he was haunted with bad thoughts ? Or again, is it a stroke of his pretence of madness-suggesting imaginary followers?]

[Footnote: 10: 'to speak plainly, as old friends.']

[Page 92]

Rosin . To visit you my Lord, no other occasion.

Ham . Begger that I am, I am euen poore in [Sidenote: am ever poore] thankes; but I thanke you: and sure deare friends my thanks are too deare a halfepeny[1]; were you [Sidenote: 72] not sent for? Is it your owne inclining? Is it a free visitation?[2] Come, deale iustly with me: come, come; nay speake. [Sidenote: come, come,]

Guil . What should we say my Lord?[3]

Ham . Why any thing. But to the purpose;
[Sidenote: Any thing but to'th purpose:] you were sent for; and there is a kinde confession
[Sidenote: kind of confession] in your lookes; which your modesties haue not craft enough to color, I know the good King and [Sidenote: 72] Queene haue sent for you.

Rosin . To what end my Lord?

Ham . That you must teach me: but let mee coniure[4] you by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth,[5] by the Obligation of our euer-preserued loue, and by what more deare, a better proposer could charge you withall; [Sidenote: can] be euen and direct with me, whether you were sent for or no.

Rosin . What say you?[6]

Ham . Nay then I haue an eye of you[7]: if you loue me hold not off.[8]

[Sidenote: 72] Guil . My Lord, we were sent for.

Ham . I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation preuent your discouery of your secricie to [Sidenote: discovery, and
your secrecie to the King and Queene moult no feather,[10]] the King and Queene[9] moult no feather, I haue [Sidenote: 116] of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custome of exercise; and indeed,
[Sidenote: exercises;] it goes so heauenly with my disposition; that this [Sidenote: heauily] goodly frame the Earth, seemes to me a sterrill Promontory; this most excellent Canopy the Ayre, look you, this braue ore-hanging, this Maiesticall
[Sidenote: orehanging firmament,] Roofe, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeares no
[Sidenote: appeareth]

[Footnote 1: -because they were by no means hearty thanks.]

[Footnote 2: He wants to know whether they are in his uncle's employment and favour; whether they pay court to himself for his uncle's ends.]

[Footnote 3: He has no answer ready.]

[Footnote 4: He will not cast them from him without trying a direct appeal to their old friendship for plain dealing. This must be remembered in relation to his treatment of them afterwards. He affords them every chance of acting truly-conjuring them to honesty-giving them a push towards repentance.]

[Footnote 5: Either, 'the harmony of our young days,' or, 'the sympathies of our present youth.']

[Footnote 6: - to Guildenstern .]

[Footnote 7: ( aside ) 'I will keep an eye upon you;'.]

[Footnote 8: 'do not hold back.']

[Footnote 9: The Quarto seems here to have the right reading.]

[Footnote 10: 'your promise of secrecy remain intact;'.]

[Page 94]

other thing to mee, then a foule and pestilent congregation
[Sidenote: nothing to me but a] of vapours. What a piece of worke is [Sidenote: what peece] a man! how Noble in Reason? how infinite in faculty? in forme and mouing how expresse and [Sidenote: faculties,] admirable? in Action, how like an Angel? in apprehension, how like a God? the beauty of the world, the Parragon of Animals; and yet to me, what is this Quintessence of Dust? Man delights not me;[1] no, nor Woman neither; though by your
[Sidenote: not me, nor women] smiling you seeme to say so.[2]

Rosin. My Lord, there was no such stuffe in my thoughts.

Ham. Why did you laugh, when I said, Man
[Sidenote: yee laugh then, when] delights not me?

Rosin. To thinke, my Lord, if you delight not in Man, what Lenton entertainment the Players shall receiue from you:[3] wee coated them[4] on the way, and hither are they comming to offer you Seruice.

Ham. [5] He that playes the King shall be welcome; his Maiesty shall haue Tribute of mee: [Sidenote: on me,] the aduenturous Knight shal vse his Foyle and Target: the Louer shall not sigh gratis , the humorous man[6] shall end his part in peace: [7] the Clowne shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled a'th' sere:[8] and the Lady shall say her minde freely; or the blanke Verse shall halt for't[9]:
[Sidenote: black verse] what Players are they?

Rosin. Euen those you