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

him to think of horrors and women together, so turning their preciousness into a disgust; and this feeling, his assumed madhess allows him to indulge and partly relieve by utterance. Could he have provoked Ophelia to rebuke him with the severity he courted, such rebuke would have been joy to him. Perhaps yet a small addition of weight to the scale of his excuse may be found in his excitement about his play, and the necessity for keeping down that excitement. Suggestion is easier than judgment.]

[Footnote 9: 'here's for the jig-maker! he's the right man!' Or perhaps he is claiming the part as his own: 'I am your only jig-maker!']

[Footnote 10: This needs not be taken for the exact time. The statement notwithstanding suggests something like two months between the first and second acts, for in the first, Hamlet says his father has not been dead two months. 24. We are not bound to take it for more than a rough approximation; Ophelia would make the best of things for the queen, who is very kind to her.]

[Footnote 11: the fur of the sable.]

[Footnote 12: 1st Q.

nay then there's some
Likelyhood, a gentlemans death may outliue memorie,
But by my faith &c.]

[Page 140]

suffer not thinking on, with the Hoby-horsse, whose Epitaph is, For o, For o, the Hoby-horse is forgot.

Hoboyes play. The dumbe shew enters.
[Sidenote: The Trumpets sounds. Dumbe show followes. ]

Enter a King and Queene, very louingly; the Queene
[Sidenote: and a Queene, the queen ] embracing him. She kneeles, and makes shew of
[Sidenote: embracing him, and he her, he takes her up, and ] Protestation vnto him. He takes her vp, and declines his head vpon her neck. Layes him downe
[Sidenote: necke, he lyes ] vpon a Banke of Flowers. She seeing him a-sleepe, leaues him. Anon comes in a Fellow,
[Sidenote: anon come in an other man ,] takes off his Crowne, kisses it, and powres poyson
[Sidenote: it, pours ] in the Kings eares, and Exits. The Queene returnes,
[Sidenote: the sleepers eares, and leaues him: ] findes the King dead, and makes passionate [Sidenote: dead, makes] Action. The Poysoner, with some two or
[Sidenote: some three or foure come in againe, seeme
to condole ] three Mutes comes in againe, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away: The
[Sidenote: with her, the ] Poysoner Wooes the Queene with Gifts, she [Sidenote: 54] seemes loath and vnwilling awhile, but in the end,
[Sidenote: seemes harsh awhile ,] accepts his loue.[1] Exeunt[2] [Sidenote: accepts loue. ]

Ophe. What meanes this, my Lord?

Ham. Marry this is Miching Malicho [3] that
[Sidenote: this munching Mallico ] meanes Mischeefe.

Ophe. Belike this shew imports the Argument of the Play?

Ham. We shall know by these Fellowes:
[Sidenote: this fellow, Enter Prologue ] the Players cannot keepe counsell, they'l tell
[Sidenote: keepe, they'le] all.[4]

Ophe. Will they tell vs what this shew meant? [Sidenote: Will a tell]

Ham. I, or any shew that you'l shew him. Bee [Sidenote: you will] not you asham'd to shew, hee'l not shame to tell you what it meanes.

Ophe. You are naught,[5] you are naught, Ile marke the Play.

[Footnote 1: The king, not the queen, is aimed at. Hamlet does not forget the injunction of the Ghost to spare his mother. 54.

The king should be represented throughout as struggling not to betray himself.]

[Footnote 2: Not in Q. ]

[Footnote 3: skulking mischief : the latter word is Spanish, To mich is to play truant .

How tenderly her tender hands betweene
In yvorie cage she did the micher bind.

The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia , page 84.

My Reader tells me the word is still in use among printers, with the pronunciation mike , and the meaning to skulk or idle .]

[Footnote 4: -their part being speech, that of the others only dumb show.]

[Footnote 5: naughty : persons who do not behave well are treated as if they were not-are made nought of-are set at nought; hence our word naughty.

'Be naught awhile' ( As You Like It , i. 1)-'take yourself away;' 'be nobody;' 'put yourself in the corner.']

[Page 142]

Enter[1] Prologue.

For vs, and for our Tragedie, Heere stooping to your Clemencie: We begge your hearing Patientlie.

Ham. Is this a Prologue, or the Poesie[2] of a [Sidenote: posie] Ring?

Ophe. 'Tis[3] briefe my Lord.

Ham. As Womans loue.

[4] Enter King and his Queene. [Sidenote: and Queene ]

[Sidenote: 234] King. Full thirtie times[5] hath Phoebus Cart gon round, Neptunes salt Wash, and Tellus Orbed ground: [Sidenote: orb'd the] And thirtie dozen Moones with borrowed sheene, About the World haue times twelue thirties beene, Since loue our hearts, and Hymen did our hands Vnite comutuall, in most sacred Bands.[6]

Bap. So many iournies may the Sunne and Moone [Sidenote: Quee. ] Make vs againe count o're, ere loue be done. But woe is me, you are so sicke of late, So farre from cheere, and from your forme state,
[Sidenote: from our former state,] That I distrust you: yet though I distrust, Discomfort you (my Lord) it nothing must: [A] For womens Feare and Loue, holds quantitie, [Sidenote: And womens hold] In neither ought, or in extremity:[7]
[Sidenote: Eyther none, in neither] Now what my loue is, proofe hath made you know,
[Sidenote: my Lord is proofe] And as my Loue is siz'd, my Feare is so. [Sidenote: ciz'd,] [B]

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto :-

For women feare too much, euen as they loue,]

[Footnote B: Here in the Quarto :-

Where loue is great, the litlest doubts are feare,
Where little feares grow great, great loue growes there.]

[Footnote 1: Enter not in Q. ]

[Footnote 2: Commonly posy : a little sentence engraved inside a ring-perhaps originally a tiny couplet, therefore poesy , 1st Q. , 'a poesie for a ring?']

[Footnote 3: Emphasis on ''Tis.']

[Footnote 4: Very little blank verse of any kind was written before Shakspere's; the usual form of dramatic verse was long, irregular, rimed lines: the Poet here uses the heroic couplet, which gives a resemblance to the older plays by its rimes, while also by its stately and monotonous movement the play-play is differenced from the play into which it is introduced, and caused to look intrinsically like a play in relation to the rest of the play of which it is part. In other words, it stands off from the surrounding play, slightly elevated both by form and formality. 103.]

[Footnote 5: 1st Q.

Duke. Full fortie yeares are past, their date is gone,
Since happy time ioyn'd both our hearts as one:
And now the blood that fill'd my youthfull veines,
Ruunes weakely in their pipes, and all the straines
Of musicke, which whilome