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

[Sidenote: A noise within .] Oh this is Counter you false Danish Dogges.[4]

Noise within. Enter Laertes [5]. [Sidenote: Laertes with others .]

King . The doores are broke.

Laer . Where is the King, sirs? Stand you all without.
[Sidenote: this King? sirs stand]

All . No, let's come in.

Laer . I pray you giue me leaue.[6]

All . We will, we will.

Laer . I thanke you: Keepe the doore. Oh thou vilde King, giue me my Father.

Qu . Calmely good Laertes .

Laer . That drop of blood, that calmes[7] [Sidenote: thats calme] Proclaimes me Bastard: Cries Cuckold to my Father, brands the Harlot Euen heere betweene the chaste vnsmirched brow Of my true Mother.[8]

Kin . What is the cause Laertes , That thy Rebellion lookes so Gyant-like? Let him go Gertrude : Do not feare[9] our person: There's such Diuinity doth hedge a King,[10] That Treason can but peepe to what it would, Acts little of his will.[11] Tell me Laertes ,

[Footnote 1: Head is a rising or gathering of people-generally rebellious, I think.]

[Footnote 2: Antiquity and Custom.]

[Footnote 3: This refers to the election of Claudius-evidently not a popular election, but effected by intrigue with the aristocracy and the army: 'They cry, Let us choose: Laertes shall be king!'

We may suppose the attempt of Claudius to have been favoured by the lingering influence of the old Norse custom of succession, by which not the son but the brother inherited. 16, bis. ]

[Footnote 4: To hunt counter is to 'hunt the game by the heel or track.' The queen therefore accuses them of not using their scent or judgment, but following appearances.]

[Footnote 5: Now at length re-appears Laertes, who has during the interim been ripening in Paris for villainy. He is wanted for the catastrophe, and requires but the last process of a few hours in the hell-oven of a king's instigation.]

[Footnote 6: The customary and polite way of saying leave me : 'grant me your absence.' 85, 89.]

[Footnote 7: grows calm.]

[Footnote 8: In taking vengeance Hamlet must acknowledge his mother such as Laertes says inaction on his part would proclaim his mother.

The actress should here let a shadow cross the queen's face: though too weak to break with the king, she has begun to repent.]

[Footnote 9: fear for .]

[Footnote 10: The consummate hypocrite claims the protection of the sacred hedge through which he had himself broken-or crept rather, like a snake, to kill. He can act innocence the better that his conscience is clear as to Polonius.]

[Footnote 11: 'can only peep through the hedge to its desire-acts little of its will.']

[Page 204]

Why thou art thus Incenst? Let him go Gertrude . Speake man.

Laer . Where's my Father? [Sidenote: is my]

King . Dead.

Qu . But not by him.

King . Let him demand his fill.

Laer . How came he dead? Ile not be Iuggel'd with. To hell Allegeance: Vowes, to the blackest diuell. Conscience and Grace, to the profoundest Pit I dare Damnation: to this point I stand, That both the worlds I giue to negligence, Let come what comes: onely Ile be reueng'd Most throughly for my Father.

King . Who shall stay you?[1]

Laer . My Will, not all the world,[1] [Sidenote: worlds:] And for my meanes, Ile husband them so well, They shall go farre with little.

King . Good Laertes : If you desire to know the certaintie Of your deere Fathers death, if writ in your reuenge,
[Sidenote: Father, i'st writ] That Soop-stake[2] you will draw both Friend and Foe, Winner and Looser.[3]

Laer . None but his Enemies.

King . Will you know them then.

La . To his good Friends, thus wide Ile ope my Armes: And like the kinde Life-rend'ring Politician,[4]
[Sidenote: life-rendring Pelican,] Repast them with my blood.[5]

King . Why now you speake Like a good Childe,[6] and a true Gentleman. That I am guiltlesse of your Fathers death, And am most sensible in greefe for it,[7] [Sidenote: sencibly]

[Footnote 1:

'Who shall prevent you?'
'My own will only-not all the world,'

or,

'Who will support you?'
'My will. Not all the world shall prevent me,'-

so playing on the two meanings of the word stay. Or it might mean: 'Not all the world shall stay my will.']

[Footnote 2: swoop-stake- sweepstakes .]

[Footnote 3: 'and be loser as well as winner-' If the Folio's is the right reading, then the sentence is unfinished, and should have a dash, not a period.]

[Footnote 4: A curious misprint: may we not suspect a somewhat dull joker among the compositors?]

[Footnote 6: 'a true son to your father.']

[Footnote 7: 'feel much grief for it.']

[Footnote 5: Laertes is a ranter-false everywhere.

Plainly he is introduced as the foil from which Hamlet 'shall stick fiery off.' In this speech he shows his moral condition directly the opposite of Hamlet's: he has no principle but revenge. His conduct ought to be quite satisfactory to Hamlet's critics; there is action enough in it of the very kind they would have of Hamlet; and doubtless it would be satisfactory to them but for the treachery that follows. The one, dearly loving a father who deserves immeasurably better of him than Polonius of Laertes, will not for the sake of revenge disregard either conscience, justice, or grace; the other will not delay even to inquire into the facts of his father's fate, but will act at once on hearsay, rushing to a blind satisfaction that cannot even be called retaliation, caring for neither right nor wrong, cursing conscience and the will of God, and daring damnation. He slights assurance as to the hand by which his father fell, dismisses all reflection that might interfere with a stupid revenge. To make up one's mind at once, and act without ground, is weakness, not strength: this Laertes does-and is therefore just the man to be the villainous, not the innocent, tool of villainy. He who has sufficing ground and refuses to act is weak; but the ground that will satisfy the populace, of which the commonplace critic is the fair type, will not satisfy either the man of conscience or of wisdom. The mass of world-bepraised action owes its existence to the pressure of circumstance, not to the will and conscience of the man. Hamlet waits for light, even with his heart accusing him; Laertes rushes into the dark, dagger in hand, like a mad Malay: so he kill, he cares not whom. Such a man is easily tempted to the vilest treachery, for the light that is in him is darkness; he is not a true man; he is false in himself. This is what comes of his father's maxim:

To thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day (!)
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Like the aphorism 'Honesty is the best policy,' it reveals the difference between a fact and a truth. Both sayings are correct as facts, but as guides of conduct devilishly false, leading to dishonesty and treachery. To be true to the divine self in us, is indeed to be true to all; but it is only by being true to all, against the ever present and urging false self, that at length we shall see the divine self rise above the chaotic waters of our selfishness, and know it so as to be true to it.

Of Laertes we must note also that it is not all for love of his father that he is ready to cast allegiance to hell, and kill the king: he has the voice of the people to succeed him.]

[Page 206]

[Sidenote: 184] It shall as leuell to your Iudgement pierce
[Sidenote: peare'] As day do's to your eye.[1]

A noise within. [2]Let her come in.

Enter Ophelia[3]

Laer . How now? what noise is that?[4]
[Sidenote: Laer . Let her come in. How now,] Oh heate drie vp my Braines, teares seuen times salt, Burne out the Sence and Vertue of mine eye. By Heauen, thy madnesse shall be payed by waight,
[Sidenote: with weight] Till our Scale turnes the beame. Oh Rose of May, [Sidenote: turne] Deere Maid, kinde Sister, sweet Ophelia : Oh Heauens, is't possible, a yong Maids wits, Should be as mortall as an old mans life?[5] [Sidenote: a poore mans] Nature is fine[6] in Loue, and where 'tis fine, It sends some precious instance of it selfe After the thing it loues.[7]

Ophe. They bore him bare fac'd on the Beer.
[Sidenote: Song .] [Sidenote: bare-faste]
Hey non nony, nony, hey nony:[8] And on his graue raines many a teare ,