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

with heated visage,] Is thought-sicke at the act.[10] [Sidenote: thought sick]

Qu. Aye me; what act,[11] that roares so lowd,[12] and thunders in the Index.[13]

[Footnote 1: Not in Q. ]

[Footnote 2: - through the arras .]

[Footnote 3: Hamlet takes him for, hopes it is the king, and thinks here to conclude: he is not praying now! and there is not a moment to be lost, for he has betrayed his presence and called for help. As often as immediate action is demanded of Hamlet, he is immediate with his response-never hesitates, never blunders. There is no blunder here: being where he was, the death of Polonius was necessary now to the death of the king. Hamlet's resolve is instant, and the act simultaneous with the resolve. The weak man is sure to be found wanting when immediate action is necessary; Hamlet never is. Doubtless those who blame him as dilatory, here blame him as precipitate, for they judge according to appearance and consequence.

All his delay after this is plainly compelled, although I grant he was not sorry to have to await such more presentable evidence as at last he procured, so long as he did not lose the final possibility of vengeance.]

[Footnote 4: This is the sole reference in the interview to the murder. I take it for tentative, and that Hamlet is satisfied by his mother's utterance, carriage, and expression, that she is innocent of any knowledge of that crime. Neither does he allude to the adultery: there is enough in what she cannot deny, and that only which can be remedied needs be taken up; while to break with the king would open the door of repentance for all that had preceded.]

[Footnote 5: He says nothing of the Ghost to his mother.]

[Footnote 6: She still holds up and holds out.]

[Footnote 7: 'makes Modesty itself suspected.']

[Footnote 8: 'makes Innocence ashamed of the love it cherishes.']

[Footnote 9: 'plucks the spirit out of all forms of contracting or agreeing.' We have lost the social and kept only the physical meaning of the noun.]

[Footnote 10: I cannot help thinking the Quarto reading of this passage the more intelligible, as well as much the more powerful. We may imagine a red aurora, by no means a very unusual phenomenon, over the expanse of the sky:-

Heaven's face doth glow ( blush )
O'er this solidity and compound mass,

( the earth, solid, material, composite, a corporeal mass in confrontment with the spirit-like etherial, simple, uncompounded heaven leaning over it )

With tristful ( or heated, as the reader may choose )
visage: as against the doom,

( as in the presence, or in anticipation of the revealing judgment )

Is thought sick at the act.

( thought is sick at the act of the queen )

My difficulties as to the Folio reading are-why the earth should be so described without immediate contrast with the sky; and-how the earth could be showing a tristful visage, and the sickness of its thought. I think, if the Poet indeed made the alterations and they are not mere blunders, he must have made them hurriedly, and without due attention. I would not forget, however, that there may be something present but too good for me to find, which would make the passage plain as it stands.

Compare As you like it , act i. sc. 3.

For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.]

[Footnote 11: In Q. the rest of this speech is Hamlet's; his long speech begins here, taking up the queen's word.]

[Footnote 12: She still stands out.]

[Footnote 13: 'thunders in the very indication or mention of it.' But by 'the Index' may be intended the influx or table of contents of a book, at the beginning of it.]

[Page 170]

Ham. Looke heere vpon this Picture, and on this, The counterfet presentment of two Brothers:[1] See what a grace was seated on his Brow, [Sidenote: on this] [Sidenote: 151] Hyperions curies, the front of Ioue himselfe, An eye like Mars, to threaten or command [Sidenote: threaten and] A Station, like the Herald Mercurie New lighted on a heauen kissing hill: [Sidenote: on a heaue, a kissing] A Combination, and a forme indeed, Where euery God did seeme to set his Seale, To giue the world assurance of a man.[2] This was your Husband. Looke you now what followes. Heere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eare Blasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes?
[Sidenote: wholsome brother,] Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed, And batten on this Moore?[3] Ha? Haue you eyes? You cannot call it Loue: For at your age, The hey-day[4] in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waites vpon the Judgement: and what Iudgement Would step from this, to this? [A] What diuell was't, That thus hath cousend you at hoodman-blinde?[5] [Sidenote: hodman] [B] O Shame! where is thy Blush? Rebellious Hell, If thou canst mutine in a Matrons bones,

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto :-

sence sure youe haue Els could you not haue motion, but sure that sence Is appoplext, for madnesse would not erre Nor sence to extacie[6] was nere so thral'd But it reseru'd some quantity of choise[7] To serue in such[8] a difference,]

[Footnote B: Here in the Quarto :-

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight. Eares without hands, or eyes, smelling sance[9] all, Or but a sickly part of one true sence Could not so mope:[10]]

[Footnote 1: He points to the portraits of the two brothers, side by side on the wall.]

[Footnote 2: See Julius Caesar , act v. sc. 5,-speech of Antony at the end.]

[Footnote 3: -perhaps an allusion as well to the complexion of Claudius, both moral and physical.]

[Footnote 4: -perhaps allied to the German heida , and possibly the English hoyden and hoity-toity . Or is it merely
high-day-noontide ?]

[Footnote 5: 'played tricks with you while hooded in the game of
blind-man's-bluff ?' The omitted passage of the Quarto enlarges the figure.

1st Q. 'hob-man blinde.']

[Footnote 6: madness.]

[Footnote 7: Attributing soul to sense, he calls its distinguishment
choice .]

[Footnote 8: -emphasis on such .]

[Footnote 9: This spelling seems to show how the English word sans should be pronounced.]

[Footnote 10: -'be so dull.']

[Page 172]

To flaming youth, let Vertue be as waxe, And melt in her owne fire. Proclaime no shame, When the compulsiue Ardure giues the charge, Since Frost it selfe,[1] as actiuely doth burne, As Reason panders Will. [Sidenote: And reason pardons will.]

Qu. O Hamlet, speake no more.[2] [Sidenote: Ger. ] Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soule,
[Sidenote: my very eyes into my soule,] And there I see such blacke and grained[3] spots,
[Sidenote: greeued spots] As will not leaue their Tinct.[4] [Sidenote: will leaue there their]

Ham. Nay, but to liue[5] In the ranke sweat of an enseamed bed, [Sidenote: inseemed] Stew'd in Corruption; honying and making loue [Sidenote: 34] Ouer the nasty Stye.[6]

Qu. Oh speake to me, no more, [Sidenote: Ger. ] [Sidenote: 158] These words like Daggers enter in mine eares.
[Sidenote: my] No more sweet Hamlet .

Ham. A Murderer, and a Villaine: A Slaue, that is not twentieth part the tythe [Sidenote: part the kyth] Of your precedent Lord. A vice[7] of Kings, A Cutpurse of the Empire and the Rule. That from a shelfe, the precious Diadem stole, And put it in his Pocket.

Qu. No more.[8] [Sidenote: Ger. ]

Enter Ghost. [9]

Ham. A King of shreds and patches. [Sidenote: 44] Saue me; and houer o're me with your wings[10] You heauenly Guards. What would you gracious figure?
[Sidenote: your gracious]

Qu. Alas he's mad.[11] [Sidenote: Ger. ]

Ham. Do you not come your tardy Sonne to chide, That laps't in Time and Passion, lets go by[12] Th'important acting of your dread command? Oh say.[13]

[Footnote 1: -his mother's matronly age.]

[Footnote 2: She gives way at last.]

[Footnote 3: -spots whose blackness has sunk into the grain, or final particles of the substance.]

[Footnote 4: -transition form of tint:-'will never give up their colour;' 'will never be cleansed.']

[Footnote 5: He persists.]

[Footnote 6: -Claudius himself-his body no 'temple of the Holy Ghost,' but a pig-sty. 3.]

[Footnote 7: The clown of the old Moral Play.]

[Footnote 8: She seems