The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 12

[Footnote 18: the judgment of the many.]

[Footnote 19: 'Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.' Eccles. x. 1.]

[Footnote 20: Compare Quarto reading, page 112:

The spirit that I haue scene May be a deale, and the deale hath power &c.

If _deale_ here stand for _devil_, then _eale_ may in the same edition be taken to stand for _evil_. It is hardly necessary to suspect a Scotch printer; _evil_ is often used as a monosyllable, and _eale_ may have been a p.r.o.nunciation of it half-way towards _ill_, which is its contraction.]

[Footnote 21: I do not believe there is any corruption in the rest of the pa.s.sage. 'Doth it of a doubt:' _affects it with a doubt_, brings it into doubt. The following from _Measure for Measure_, is like, though not the same.

I have on Angelo imposed the office, Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home And yet my nature never in the fight _To do in slander._

'To do my nature in slander'; to affect it with slander; to bring it into slander, 'Angelo may punish in my name, but, not being present, I shall not be accused of cruelty, which would be to slander my nature.']

[Footnote 22: _his_--the man's; see _note_ 13 above.]

[Page 46]

[Sidenote: 112] Be thy euents wicked or charitable, [Sidenote: thy intent]

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape[1]

That I will speake to thee. Ile call thee _Hamlet_,[2]

King, Father, Royall Dane: Oh, oh, answer me, [Sidenote: Dane, o answere]

Let me not burst in Ignorance; but tell Why thy Canoniz'd bones Hea.r.s.ed in death,[3]

Haue burst their cerments; why the Sepulcher Wherein we saw thee quietly enurn'd,[4]

[Sidenote: quietly interr'd[3]]

Hath op'd his ponderous and Marble iawes, To cast thee vp againe? What may this meane?

That thou dead Coa.r.s.e againe in compleat steele, Reuisits thus the glimpses of the Moone, Making Night hidious? And we fooles of Nature,[6]

So horridly to shake our disposition,[7]

With thoughts beyond thee; reaches of our Soules,[8]

[Sidenote: the reaches]

Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we doe?[9]

_Ghost beckens Hamlet._

_Hor._ It beckons you to goe away with it, [Sidenote: Beckins]

As if it some impartment did desire To you alone.

_Mar._ Looke with what courteous action It wafts you to a more remoued ground: [Sidenote: waues]

But doe not goe with it.

_Hor._ No, by no meanes.

_Ham_. It will not speake: then will I follow it.

[Sidenote: I will]

_Hor._ Doe not my Lord.

_Ham._ Why, what should be the feare?

I doe not set my life at a pins fee; And for my Soule, what can it doe to that?

Being a thing immortall as it selfe:[10]

It waues me forth againe; Ile follow it.

_Hor._ What if it tempt you toward the Floud my Lord?[11]

[Footnote 1: --that of his father, so moving him to question it.

_Questionable_ does not mean _doubtful_, but _fit to be questioned_.]

[Footnote 2: 'I'll _call_ thee'--for the nonce.]

[Footnote 3: I think _hea.r.s.e_ was originally the bier--French _herse_, a harrow--but came to be applied to the coffin: _hea.r.s.ed_ in death--_coffined_ in death.]

[Footnote 4: There is no impropriety in the use of the word _inurned_.

It is a figure--a word once-removed in its application: the sepulchre is the urn, the body the ashes. _Interred_ Shakspere had concluded incorrect, for the body was not laid in the earth.]

[Footnote 5: So in _1st Q_.]

[Footnote 6: 'fooles of Nature'--fools in the presence of her knowledge--to us no knowledge--of her action, to us inexplicable. _A fact_ that looks unreasonable makes one feel like a fool. See Psalm lxxiii. 22: 'So foolish was I and ignorant, I was as a beast before thee.' As some men are our fools, we are all Nature's fools; we are so far from knowing anything as it is.]

[Footnote 7: Even if Shakspere cared more about grammar than he does, a man in Hamlet's perturbation he might well present as making a breach in it; but we are not reduced even to justification. _Toschaken_ (_to_ as German _zu_ intensive) is a recognized English word; it means _to shake to pieces_. The construction of the pa.s.sage is, 'What may this mean, that thou revisitest thus the glimpses of the moon, and that we so horridly to-shake our disposition?' So in _The Merry Wives_,

And fairy-like to-pinch the unclean knight.

'our disposition': our _cosmic structure_.]

[Footnote 8: 'with thoughts that are too much for them, and as an earthquake to them.']

[Footnote 9: Like all true souls, Hamlet wants to know what he is _to do_. He looks out for the action required of him.]

[Footnote 10: Note here Hamlet's mood--dominated by his faith. His life in this world his mother has ruined; he does not care for it a pin: he is not the less confident of a nature that is immortal. In virtue of this belief in life, he is indifferent to the form of it. When, later in the play, he seems to fear death, it is death the consequence of an action of whose rightness he is not convinced.]

[Footnote 11: _The Quarto has dropped out_ 'Lord.']

[Page 48]

Or to the dreadfull Sonnet of the Cliffe, [Sidenote: somnet]

That beetles[1] o're his base into the Sea, [Sidenote: bettles]

[Sidenote: 112] And there a.s.sumes some other horrible forme,[2]

[Sidenote: a.s.sume]

Which might depriue your Soueraignty[3] of Reason And draw you into madnesse thinke of it?

[A]

_Ham._ It wafts me still; goe on, Ile follow thee.

[Sidenote: waues]

_Mar._ You shall not goe my Lord.