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

Turfe, at his heeles a stone.
[Sidenote: O ho.]

Enter King .

Qu . Nay but Ophelia .

Ophe . Pray you marke.
White his Shrow'd as the Mountaine Snow. [Sidenote: Enter King .]

Qu . Alas looke heere my Lord,

[Sidenote: 246] Ophe. Larded[8] with sweet flowers :
[Sidenote: Larded all with]
Which bewept to the graue did not go , [Sidenote: ground | Song .]
With true-loue showres ,

[Footnote 1: 'present them,'-her words, that is-giving significance or interpretation to them.]

[Footnote 2: If this would , and not the might of the Quarto , be the correct reading, it means that Ophelia would have something thought so and so.]

[Footnote 3: -changing her mind on Horatio's representation. At first she would not speak with her.]

[Footnote 4: 'minds that breed evil.']

[Footnote 5: -as a quotation.]

[Footnote 6: Instance, the history of Macbeth.]

[Footnote 7: 1st Q. Enter Ofelia playing on a Lute, and her haire downe singing.

Hamlet's apparent madness would seem to pass into real madness in Ophelia. King Lear's growing perturbation becomes insanity the moment he sees the pretended madman Edgar.

The forms of Ophelia's madness show it was not her father's death that drove her mad, but his death by the hand of Hamlet, which, with Hamlet's banishment, destroyed all the hope the queen had been fostering in her of marrying him some day.]

[Footnote 8: This expression is, as Dr. Johnson says, taken from cookery; but it is so used elsewhere by Shakspere that we cannot regard it here as a scintillation of Ophelia's insanity.]

[Page 198]

King . How do ye, pretty Lady? [Sidenote: you]

Ophe . Well, God dil'd you.[1] They say the
[Sidenote: good dild you,[1]] Owle was a Bakers daughter.[2] Lord, wee know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your Table.

[Sidenote: 174] King . Conceit[3] vpon her Father.

Ophe . Pray you let's haue no words of this: [Sidenote: Pray lets] but when they aske you what it meanes, say you this:

[4] To morrow is S. Valentines day, all in the morning betime, And I a Maid at your Window to be your Valentine. Then vp he rose, and don'd[5] his clothes, and dupt[5] the chamber dore, Let in the Maid, that out a Maid, neuer departed more.

King . Pretty Ophelia.

Ophe . Indeed la? without an oath Ile make an
[Sidenote: Indeede without] end ont.[6]

By gis, and by S. Charity, Alacke, and fie for shame: Yong men wil doo't, if they come too't, By Cocke they are too blame. Quoth she before you tumbled me, You promis'd me to Wed: So would I ha done by yonder Sunne , [Sidenote: (He answers,) So would]
And thou hadst not come to my bed.

King . How long hath she bin this? [Sidenote: beene thus?]

Ophe . I hope all will be well. We must bee patient, but I cannot choose but weepe, to thinke they should lay him i'th'cold ground: My brother
[Sidenote: they wouid lay] shall knowe of it, and so I thanke you for your good counsell. Come, my Coach: Goodnight Ladies: Goodnight sweet Ladies: Goodnight, goodnight. Exit [7]

[Footnote 1: 1st Q . 'God yeeld you,' that is, reward you . Here we have a blunder for the contraction, 'God 'ild you'-perhaps a common blunder.]

[Footnote 2: For the silly legend, see Douce's note in Johnson and Steevens .]

[Footnote 3: imaginative brooding.]

[Footnote 4: We dare no judgment on madness in life: we need not in art.]

[Footnote 5: Preterites of don and dup , contracted from do on and
do up .]

[Footnote 6: -disclaiming false modesty.]

[Footnote 7: Not in Q .]

[Page 200]

King . Follow her close, Giue her good watch I pray you: Oh this is the poyson of deepe greefe, it springs All from her Fathers death. Oh Gertrude, Gertrude ,
[Sidenote: death, and now behold, ô Gertrard, Gertrard ,] When sorrowes comes, they come not single spies,[1]
[Sidenote: sorrowes come] But in Battaliaes. First, her Father slaine, [Sidenote: battalians:] Next your Sonne gone, and he most violent Author Of his owne iust remoue: the people muddied,[2] Thicke and vnwholsome in their thoughts, and whispers
[Sidenote: in thoughts] For[3] good Polonius death; and we haue done but greenly [Sidenote: 182] In hugger mugger[4] to interre him. Poore Ophelia Diuided from her selfe,[5] and her faire Iudgement, Without the which we are Pictures, or meere Beasts. Last, and as much containing as all these, Her Brother is in secret come from France, Keepes on his wonder,[6] keepes himselfe in clouds,
[Sidenote: Feeds on this[6]] And wants not Buzzers to infect his eare [Sidenote: care] With pestilent Speeches of his Fathers death, Where in necessitie of matter Beggard, [Sidenote: Wherein necessity] Will nothing sticke our persons to Arraigne [Sidenote: person] In eare and eare.[7] O my deere Gertrude , this, Like to a murdering Peece[8] in many places, Giues me superfluous death. A Noise within .

Enter a Messenger .

Qu . Alacke, what noyse is this?[9]

King . Where are my Switzers ?[10]
[Sidenote: King . Attend, where is my Swissers,] Let them guard the doore. What is the matter?

Mes . Saue your selfe, my Lord. [Sidenote: 120] The Ocean (ouer-peering of his List[11]) Eates not the Flats with more impittious[12] haste

[Footnote 1: -each alone, like scouts.]

[Footnote 2: stirred up like pools-with similar result.]

[Footnote 3: because of.]

[Footnote 4: The king wished to avoid giving the people any pretext or cause for interfering: he dreaded whatever might lead to enquiry-to the queen of course pretending it was to avoid exposing Hamlet to the popular indignation. Hugger mugger-secretly: Steevens and Malone. ]

[Footnote 5: The phrase has the same visual root as beside herself -both signifying ' not at one with herself.']

[Footnote 6: If the Quarto reading is right, 'this wonder' means the hurried and suspicious funeral of his father. But the Folio reading is quite Shaksperean: 'He keeps on (as a garment) the wonder of the people at him'; keeps his behaviour such that the people go on wondering about him : the phrase is explained by the next clause. Compare:

By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But, like a comet, I was wondered at.

K. Henry IV. P. I . act iii. sc. 1.]

[Footnote 7: 'wherein Necessity, beggared of material, will not scruple to whisper invented accusations against us.']

[Footnote 8: -the name given to a certain small cannon-perhaps charged with various missiles, hence the better figuring the number and variety of 'sorrows' he has just recounted.]

[Footnote 9: This line not in Q. ]

[Footnote 10: Note that the king is well guarded, and Hamlet had to lay his account with great risk in the act of killing him.]

[Footnote 11: border, as of cloth : the mounds thrown up to keep the sea out. The figure here specially fits a Dane.]

[Footnote 12: I do not know whether this word means pitiless , or stands for impetuous . The Quarto has one t .]

[Page 202]

Then young Laertes , in a Riotous head,[1] Ore-beares your Officers, the rabble call him Lord, And as the world were now but to begin, Antiquity forgot, Custome not knowne, The Ratifiers and props of euery word,[2] [Sidenote: 62] They cry choose we? Laertes shall be King,[3]
[Sidenote: The cry] Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds,
Laertes shall be King, Laertes King.

Qu . How cheerefully on the false Traile they cry,