The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 28

[Footnote 10: _1st Q_. 'Vallanced'--_with a beard_, that is. Both readings may be correct.]

[Footnote 11: A boy of course: no women had yet appeared on the stage.]

[Footnote 12: A Venetian boot, stilted, sometimes very high.]

[Footnote 13: --because then it would be unfit for a woman-part. A piece of gold so worn that it had a crack reaching within the inner circle was no longer current. _1st Q_. 'in the ring:'--was a pun intended?]

[Footnote 14: --like French sportsmen of the present day too.]

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straight. Come giue vs a tast of your quality: come, a pa.s.sionate speech.

_1. Play._ What speech, my Lord? [Sidenote: my good Lord?]

_Ham._ I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was neuer Acted: or if it was, not aboue once, for the Play I remember pleas'd not the Million, 'twas _Cauiarie_ to the Generall[1]: but it was (as I receiu'd it, and others, whose iudgement in such matters, cried in the top of mine)[2] an excellent Play; well digested in the Scoenes, set downe with as much modestie, as cunning.[3] I remember one said there was no Sallets[4] in the lines, to make the [Sidenote: were]

matter sauoury; nor no matter in the phrase,[5] that might indite the Author of affectation, but cal'd it [Sidenote: affection,]

an honest method[A]. One cheefe Speech in it, I [Sidenote: one speech in't I]

cheefely lou'd, 'twas _aeneas_ Tale to _Dido_, and [Sidenote: _Aeneas_ talke to]

thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of [Sidenote: when]

_Priams_[6] slaughter. If it liue in your memory, begin at this Line, let me see, let me see: The rugged _Pyrrhus_ like th'_Hyrcanian_ Beast.[7] It is [Sidenote: tis not]

not so: it begins[8] with _Pyrrhus_.[9]

[10] The rugged _Pyrrhus_, he whose Sable Armes[11]

Blacke as his purpose, did the night resemble When he lay couched in the Ominous[12] Horse, Hath now this dread and blacke Complexion smear'd With Heraldry more dismall: Head to foote Now is he to take Geulles,[13] horridly Trick'd [Sidenote: is he totall Gules [18]]

With blood of Fathers, Mothers, Daughters, Sonnes, [14] Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets, That lend a tyrannous, and d.a.m.ned light [Sidenote: and a d.a.m.ned]

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:_-- as wholesome as sweete, and by very much, more handsome then fine:]

[Footnote 1: The salted roe of the sturgeon is a delicacy disliked by most people.]

[Footnote 2: 'were superior to mine.'

The _1st Quarto_ has,

'Cried in the toppe of their iudgements, an excellent play,'--that is, _p.r.o.nounced it, to the best of their judgments, an excellent play_.

Note the difference between 'the top of _my_ judgment', and 'the top of _their_ judgments'. 97.]

[Footnote 3: skill.]

[Footnote 4: coa.r.s.e jests. 25, 67.]

[Footnote 5: _style_.]

[Footnote 6: _1st Q_. 'Princes slaughter.']

[Footnote 7: _1st Q_. 'th'arganian beast:' 'the Hyrcan tiger,' Macbeth, iii. 4.]

[Footnote 8: 'it _begins_': emphasis on begins.]

[Footnote 9: A pause; then having recollected, he starts afresh.]

[Footnote 10: These pa.s.sages are Shakspere's own, not quotations: the Quartos differ. But when he wrote them he had in his mind a phantom of Marlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_. I find Steevens has made a similar conjecture, and quotes from Marlowe two of the pa.s.sages I had marked as being like pa.s.sages here.]

[Footnote 11: The poetry is admirable in its kind--intentionally _charged_, to raise it to the second stage-level, above the blank verse, that is, of the drama in which it is set, as that blank verse is raised above the ordinary level of speech. 143.

The correspondent pa.s.sage in _1st Q_. runs nearly parallel for a few lines.]

[Footnote 12:--like _portentous_.]

[Footnote 13: 'all red', _1st Q_. 'totall guise.']

[Footnote 14: Here the _1st Quarto_ has:--

Back't and imparched in calagulate gore, Rifted in earth and fire, olde grandsire _Pryam_ seekes: So goe on.]

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To their vilde Murthers, roasted in wrath and fire, [Sidenote: their Lords murther,]

And thus o're-sized with coagulate gore, With eyes like Carbuncles, the h.e.l.lish _Pyrrhus_ Old Grandsire _Priam_ seekes.[1]

[Sidenote: seekes; so proceede you.[2]]

_Pol_. Fore G.o.d, my Lord, well spoken, with good accent, and good discretion.[3]

_1. Player_. Anon he findes him, [Sidenote: _Play_]

Striking too short at Greekes.[4] His anticke Sword, Rebellious to his Arme, lyes where it falles Repugnant to command[4]: vnequall match, [Sidenote: matcht,]

_Pyrrhus_ at _Priam_ driues, in Rage strikes wide: But with the whiffe and winde of his fell Sword, Th'vnnerued Father fals.[5] Then senselesse Illium,[6]

Seeming to feele his blow, with flaming top [Sidenote: seele[7] this blowe,]

Stoopes to his Bace, and with a hideous crash Takes Prisoner _Pyrrhus_ eare. For loe, his Sword Which was declining on the Milkie head Of Reuerend _Priam_, seem'd i'th'Ayre to sticke: So as a painted Tyrant _Pyrrhus_ stood,[8] [Sidenote: stood Like]

And like a Newtrall to his will and matter,[9] did nothing.[10]

[11] But as we often see against some storme, A silence in the Heauens, the Racke stand still, The bold windes speechlesse, and the Orbe below As hush as death: Anon the dreadfull Thunder [Sidenote: 110] Doth rend the Region.[11] So after _Pyrrhus_ pause, Arowsed Vengeance sets him new a-worke, And neuer did the Cyclops hammers fall On Mars his Armours, forg'd for proofe Eterne, [Sidenote: _Ma.r.s.es_ Armor]

With lesse remorse then _Pyrrhus_ bleeding sword Now falles on _Priam_.

[12] Out, out, thou Strumpet-Fortune, all you G.o.ds, In generall Synod take away her power: Breake all the Spokes and Fallies from her wheele, [Sidenote: follies]

[Footnote 1: This, though horrid enough, is in degree below the description in _Dido_.]

[Footnote 2: He is directing the player to take up the speech there where he leaves it. See last quotation from _1st Q_.]

[Footnote 3: _judgment_.]

[Footnote 4: --with an old man's under-reaching blows--till his arm is so jarred by a missed blow, that he cannot raise his sword again.]

[Footnote 5:

Whereat he lifted up his bedrid limbs, And would have grappled with Achilles' son,