The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 33

_Enter Hamlet._[2]

_Ham._ To be, or not to be, that is the Question: Whether 'tis n.o.bler in the minde to suffer The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune, [Sidenote: 200,250] Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,[3]

And by opposing end them:[4] to dye, to sleepe No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes That Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation Deuoutly to be wish'd.[5] To dye to sleepe, To sleepe, perchance to Dreame;[6] I, there's the rub, For in that sleepe of death, what[7] dreames may come,[8]

When we haue shuffle'd off this mortall coile, [Sidenote: 186] Must giue vs pawse.[9] There's the respect That makes Calamity of so long life:[10]

For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time, The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely, [Sidenote: proude mans]

[Sidenote: 114] The pangs of dispriz'd Loue,[11] the Lawes delay, [Sidenote: despiz'd]

The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes That patient merit of the vnworthy takes, [Sidenote: th']

When he himselfe might his _Quietus_ make [Sidenote: 194,252-3] With a bare Bodkin?[12] Who would these Fardles beare[13] [Sidenote: would fardels]

To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life, [Sidenote: 194] But that the dread of something after death,[14]

The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne No Traueller returnes,[15] Puzels the will, And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue, Then flye to others that we know not of.

Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,[16]

[Sidenote: 30] And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution[17]

Is sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought,[18]

[Sidenote: sickled]

[Footnote 1: _Not in Q._--They go behind the tapestry, where it hangs over the recess of the doorway. Ophelia thinks they have left the room.]

[Footnote 2: _In Q. before last speech._]

[Footnote 3: Perhaps to a Danish or Dutch critic, or one from the eastern coast of England, this simile would not seem so unfit as it does to some.]

[Footnote 4: To print this so as I would have it read, I would complete this line from here with points, and commence the next with points. At the other breaks of the soliloquy, as indicated below, I would do the same--thus:

And by opposing end them....

....To die--to sleep,]

[Footnote 5: _Break_.]

[Footnote 6: _Break_.]

[Footnote 7: Emphasis on _what_.]

[Footnote 8: Such dreams as the poor Ghost's.]

[Footnote 9: _Break._ --'_pawse_' is the noun, and from its use at page 186, we may judge it means here 'pause for reflection.']

[Footnote 10: 'makes calamity so long-lived.']

[Footnote 11: --not necessarily disprized by the _lady_; the disprizer in Hamlet's case was the worldly and suspicious father--and that in part, and seemingly to Hamlet altogether, for the king's sake.]

[Footnote 12: _small sword_. If there be here any allusion to suicide, it is on the general question, and with no special application to himself. 24. But it is the king and the bare bodkin his thought a.s.sociates. How could he even glance at the things he has just mentioned, as each, a reason for suicide? It were a cowardly country indeed where the question might be asked, 'Who would not commit suicide because of any one of these things, except on account of what may follow after death?'! One might well, however, be tempted to destroy an oppressor, _and risk his life in that._]

[Footnote 13: _Fardel_, burden: the old French for _fardeau_, I am informed.]

[Footnote 14: --a dread caused by conscience.]

[Footnote 15: The Ghost could not be imagined as having _returned_.]

[Footnote 16: 'of us all' _not in Q._ It is not the fear of evil that makes us cowards, but the fear of _deserved_ evil. The Poet may intend that conscience alone is the cause of fear in man. '_Coward_' does not here involve contempt: it should be spoken with a grim smile. But Hamlet would hardly call turning from _suicide_ cowardice in any sense. 24.]

[Footnote 17: --such as was his when he vowed vengeance.]

[Footnote 18: --such as immediately followed on that The _native_ hue of resolution--that which is natural to man till interruption comes--is ruddy; the hue of thought is pale. I suspect the '_pale cast_' of an allusion to whitening with _rough-cast_.]

[Page 122]

And enterprizes of great pith and moment,[1] [Sidenote: pitch [1]]

With this regard their Currants turne away, [Sidenote: awry]

And loose the name of Action.[2] Soft you now, [Sidenote: 119] The faire _Ophelia_? Nimph, in thy Orizons[3]

Be all my sinnes remembred.[4]

_Ophe._ Good my Lord, How does your Honor for this many a day?

_Ham._ I humbly thanke you: well, well, well.[5]

_Ophe._ My Lord, I haue Remembrances of yours, That I haue longed long to re-deliuer.

I pray you now, receiue them.

_Ham._ No, no, I neuer gaue you ought.[6]

[Sidenote: No, not I, I never]

_Ophe._ My honor'd Lord, I know right well you did, [Sidenote: you know]

And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd, As made the things more rich, then perfume left: [Sidenote: these things their perfume lost.[7]]

Take these againe, for to the n.o.ble minde Rich gifts wax poore, when giuers proue vnkinde.

There my Lord.[8]

_Ham._ Ha, ha: Are you honest?[9]

_Ophe._ My Lord.

_Ham._ Are you faire?

_Ophe._ What meanes your Lords.h.i.+p?

_Ham._ That if you be honest and faire, your [Sidenote: faire, you should admit]

Honesty[10] should admit no discourse to your Beautie.

_Ophe._ Could Beautie my Lord, haue better Comerce[11] then your Honestie?[12]

[Sidenote: Then with honestie?[11]]

_Ham._ I trulie: for the power of Beautie, will sooner transforme Honestie from what it is, to a Bawd, then the force of Honestie can translate Beautie into his likenesse. This was sometime a Paradox, but now the time giues it proofe. I did loue you once.[13]

_Ophe._ Indeed my Lord, you made me beleeue so.

[Footnote 1: How could _suicide_ be styled _an enterprise of great pith_? Yet less could it be called _of great pitch_.]

[Footnote 2: I allow this to be a general reflection, but surely it serves to show that _conscience_ must at least be one of Hamlet's restraints.]