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

my] my mother.[1] Come, for England. Exit

[Sidenote: 195] King. Follow him at foote,[2] Tempt him with speed aboord: Delay it not, He haue him hence to night. Away, for euery thing is Seal'd and done That else leanes on[3] th'Affaire pray you make hast. And England, if my loue thou holdst at ought, As my great power thereof may giue thee sense, Since yet thy Cicatrice lookes raw and red[4] After the Danish Sword, and thy free awe Payes homage to vs[5]; thou maist not coldly set[6] Our Soueraigne Processe,[7] which imports at full By Letters conjuring to that effect [Sidenote: congruing] The present death of Hamlet . Do it England, For like the Hecticke[8] in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me: Till I know 'tis done, How ere my happes,[9] my ioyes were ne're begun.[10]
[Sidenote: ioyes will nere begin.]
Exit [11]

[Sidenote: 274] [12] Enter Fortinbras with an Armie.
[Sidenote: with his Army ouer the stage.]

For. Go Captaine, from me greet the Danish King, Tell him that by his license, Fortinbras [Sidenote: 78] Claimes the conueyance[13] of a promis'd March
[Sidenote: Craues the] Ouer his Kingdome. You know the Rendeuous:[14]

[Footnote 1: He will not touch the hand of his father's murderer.]

[Footnote 2: 'at his heels.']

[Footnote 3: 'belongs to.']

[Footnote 4: 'as my great power may give thee feeling of its value, seeing the scar of my vengeance has hardly yet had time to heal.']

[Footnote 5: 'and thy fear uncompelled by our presence, pays homage to us.']

[Footnote 6: 'set down to cool'; 'set in the cold.']

[Footnote 7: mandate : 'Where's Fulvia's process?' Ant. and Cl. , act i. sc. 1. Shakespeare Lexicon .]

[Footnote 8: hectic fever-habitual or constant fever.]

[Footnote 9: 'whatever my fortunes.']

[Footnote 10: The original, the Quarto reading-' my ioyes will nere begin ' seems to me in itself better, and the cause of the change to be as follows.

In the Quarto the next scene stands as in our modern editions, ending with the rime,

ô from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth. Exit .

This was the act-pause, the natural end of act iii.

But when the author struck out all but the commencement of the scene, leaving only the three little speeches of Fortinbras and his captain, then plainly the act-pause must fall at the end of the preceding scene. He therefore altered the end of the last verse to make it rime with the foregoing, in accordance with his frequent way of using a rime before an important pause.

It perplexes us to think how on his way to the vessel, Hamlet could fall in with the Norwegian captain. This may have been one of Shakspere's reasons for striking the whole scene out-but he had other and more pregnant reasons.]

[Footnote 11: Here is now the proper close of the Third Act .]

[Footnote 12: Commencement of the Fourth Act.

Between the third and the fourth passes the time Hamlet is away; for the latter, in which he returns, and whose scenes are contiguous , needs no more than one day.]

[Footnote 13: 'claims a convoy in fulfilment of the king's promise to allow him to march over his kingdom.' The meaning is made plainer by the correspondent passage in the 1st Quarto :

Tell him that Fortenbrasse nephew to old Norway ,
Craues a free passe and conduct ouer his land,
According to the Articles agreed on:]

[Footnote 14: 'where to rejoin us.']

[Page 192]

If that his Maiesty would ought with vs, We shall expresse our dutie in his eye,[1] And let[2] him know so.

Cap. I will doo't, my Lord.

For. Go safely[3] on. Exit. [Sidenote: softly]

[A]

[4] Enter Queene and Horatio .
[Sidenote: Enter Horatio, Gertrard, and a Gentleman .]

Qu. I will not speake with her.

Hor. [5] She is importunate, indeed distract, her [Sidenote: Gent .] moode will needs be pittied.

Qu . What would she haue?

Hor . She speakes much of her Father; saies she heares
[Sidenote: Gent .]


[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto :-

Enter Hamlet, Rosencraus, &c.

Ham . Good sir whose powers are these?

Cap . They are of Norway sir.

Ham . How purposd sir I pray you?

Cap . Against some part of Poland .

Ham . Who commaunds them sir?

Cap . The Nephew to old Norway, Fortenbrasse .

Ham . Goes it against the maine of Poland sir, Or for some frontire?

Cap . Truly to speake, and with no addition,[6] We goe to gaine a little patch of ground[7] That hath in it no profit but the name To pay fiue duckets, fiue I would not farme it; Nor will it yeeld to Norway or the Pole A rancker rate, should it be sold in fee.

Ham . Why then the Pollacke neuer will defend it.

Cap . Yes, it is already garisond.

Ham . Two thousand soules, and twenty thousand duckets Will not debate the question of this straw This is th'Impostume of much wealth and peace, That inward breakes, and showes no cause without Why the man dies.[8] I humbly thanke you sir.

Cap . God buy you sir.

Ros . Wil't please you goe my Lord?

[Sidenote: 187, 195] Ham . Ile be with you straight, goe a little before.[9] [10]How all occasions[11] doe informe against me,

[Continued on next text page.]]

[Footnote 1: 'we shall pay our respects, waiting upon his person.']

[Footnote 2: 'let,' imperative mood .]

[Footnote 3: 'with proper precaution,' said to his attendant officers. ]

[Footnote 4: This was originally intended, I repeat, for the commencement of the act. But when the greater part of the foregoing scene was omitted, and the third act made to end with the scene before that, then the small part left of the all-but-cancelled scene must open the fourth act.]

[Footnote 5: Hamlet absent, we find his friend looking after Ophelia. Gertrude seems less friendly towards her.]

[Footnote 6: exaggeration.]

[Footnote 7: -probably a small outlying island or coast-fortress, not far off , else why should Norway care about it at all? If the word
frontier has the meaning, as the Shakespeare Lexicon says, of 'an outwork in fortification,' its use two lines back would, taken figuratively, tend to support this.]

[Footnote 8: The meaning may be as in the following paraphrase: 'This quarrelling about nothing is (the breaking of) the abscess caused by wealth and peace-which breaking inward (in general corruption), would show no outward sore in sign of why death came.' Or it might be forced thus:-

This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace.
That (which) inward breaks, and shows no cause without-
Why, the man dies!

But it may mean:-'The war is an imposthume, which will break within, and cause much affliction to the people that make the war.' On the other hand, Hamlet seems to regard it as a process for, almost a sign of health.]

[Footnote 9: Note his freedom.]

[Footnote 10: See 'examples grosse as earth' below .]

[Footnote 11: While every word that Shakspere wrote we may well take pains to grasp thoroughly, my endeavour to cast light on this passage is made with the distinct understanding in my own mind that the author himself disapproved of and omitted it, and that good reason is not wanting why he should have done so. At the same time, if my student, for this book is for those who would have help and will take pains to the true understanding of the play, would yet retain the passage, I protest against the acceptance of Hamlet's judgment of himself, except as revealing the simplicity and humility of his nature and character. That as often as a vivid memory of either interview with the Ghost came back upon him, he should feel rebuked and ashamed, and vexed with himself, is, in the morally, intellectually, and emotionally troubled state of his mind, nowise the less natural that he had the best of reasons for the delay because of which he here so unmercifully abuses himself. A man of self-satisfied temperament would never in similar circumstances have done so. But Hamlet was, by nature and education, far from such self-satisfaction; and there is in him besides such a strife and turmoil of opposing passions and feelings and apparent duties, as can but rarely rise in a human soul. With which he ought to side, his conscience is not sure-sides therefore now with one, now with another. At the same time it is by no means the long delay the critics imagine of which he is accusing himself-it is only that the thing is not done .

In certain moods the action a man dislikes will therefore look to him the more like a duty; and this helps to prevent Hamlet from knowing always how great a part conscience bears in the omission because of which he condemns and even contemns himself. The conscience does not naturally examine itself-is not necessarily self-conscious. In any soliloquy, a man must speak from his present mood: we who are not suffering, and who have many of his