This is a chapter from the book Shakespeare Characters: Chiefly Those Subordinate by Charles Cowden Clarke who was one of the outstanding literary critics of his time. The book was originally published in 1863 by Smith-Elder and Co. of
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III
HAMLET
HAMLET is the prince of poetical philosophers. To phiosophise is the habit of his mind. To reflect and reason upon everything and every person that comes within his sphere, ponder upon every event that occurs,-to consider and reconsider each circumstance that arises,--is with him a part of his nature. He can no more help philosophising than he can help breathing; it is his mental atmosphere, as the air is his vital one. He philosophises upon his mother; upon his mistress upon his friend; upon the king; upon the old courtier," Polonius; upon the water-fly, Osric; upon "the sponge, Rosencrantz; and upon the spy, Guildenstern. He even philosophises upon himself, and upon himself most of all. Yet, with all this, as the poet has managed it, there is nothing dictatorial or dogmatical in Hamlet; for Hamlet is a gentleman--a more accomplished, a more courteous gentleman than he, is not to be found in all Shakespeare, (and, I was going to say,) or anywhere else. Hamlet is not either dry or prolix. He is not didactic; for his reflections are rather for his own Il/1hoof than delivered as precepts for others. He is not sentitious for his words flow on in the shape of reverie and musing rather than in that of terse, brief phrases, uttered for
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effect. His moral philosophy is not studied; it has no rule,
no set or specific rule, but is a rich emanation of his own spiritual being--flowing from his profound heart, his noble mind, his fertile imagination, his great and lofty soul. He moralises almost unconsciously; so naturally, so spontaneously do his ideas take that form.
How artistically has Shakespeare made Hamlet fall into that habitual mode of parlance, even in the very hour of awaiting the dread apparition on the platform at midnight, On his first coming in,--when we may imagine that they have all dropped into silence, as they approach the haunted spot, --Hamlet complains of the chill night breeze:
"The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold."
But no sooner has the cannon sounded which announces the royal carousal, and the voice of his friend Horatio is heard, asking whether this be a custom, than the Prince answers in the philosophic strain natural to him :
“ Ay, marry is it :
But to my mind,--though I am native here,
And to the manner born I--it is a ' custom'
More honour'd in the breach than the observance. This heavy-headed revel, east and west,
Makes us traduced, and tax'd of other nations: They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform'd at height, The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As in their birth, (wherein they are not guilty, Since nature cannot choose his origin,)
By the overgrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by some habit, that too much o'er-leavens
The form of applausive manners that these men,
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Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,
Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,)
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault : -- The dram of base
Doth all the noble sustance often d'out,
To his own scandal. [Enter Ghost.]
"Hor. Look, my lord,--it comes!
"Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!"
This is wonderfully striking; and as characteristic as it is striking. No one like Shakespeare for consistency in character, and for making that consistency a heightener of his dramatic and poetical effects, as well as of his portraiture effects. Monsieur Guizot, in his clever book upon our great English poet, -- "Shakespeare and his Times," -- declares
“unity of impression" to be the great law of Shakespeare's dramatic art; and the marvellous harmony and consistency in his characters forms one portion of this “unity of impression."
Hamlet's proneness to soliloquy bespeaks the reflective man; and it not only serves to denote his philosophic mood, but it paints the perturbed conditi0n of his spirit under the onerous task of revenge, imposed upon him by fate. Inexpressibly affecting is that eagerness he betrays to get by himself,--to feel free and unwatched,--that he may' revolve the thoughts of his burthened heart at liberty. We feel the load taken from him in those words of his, "Now I am alone," when Polonius, the players, and the two sycophant lords, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, leave him. And also, afterwards, on the journey, when he bids the two latter prying personages" Go on before," that he may indulge his reverie upon meeting with the captain of Fortinbras's forces. The vast responsibility laid by the Ghost upon him constantly rises upon his tide of thought, haunting, and urging him to
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his settled course of action. When all the company have gone on,--soldiers and courtiers,--he breaks forth :
“ How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good, and market of his time,
Be but to sleep, and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, He that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th' event,
A thought, which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom, And ever three parts coward,--I do not know
Why yet I live to say, (This thing's to do,..
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means,
To do it."
And he concludes his twentieth vacillation with this resolve:
“ Oh! from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth I"
Hamlet's philosophy not unfrequently takes the form of bitter jests, while foiling the eaves-dropping treachery of those two hireling courtiers. He contemptuously dallies with their curiosity, and plays with their puzzled perceptions. He even strikes off into a wild levity and startling humour at times; and this eccentricity of demeanour, it is unnecessary to observe, was prepared and adopted by him to carry out his plan of subterfuge--action in assuming the character of insanity. For instance, where he replies to the King's inquiries after the dead body of Polonius, with those scoffing answers :
"King. Where is Polonius?
Ham. In heaven: send thither to see. If your messenger
find him not there, seek him in th' other place yourself. But,
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indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up stairs into the lobby.
"King. [To some attendants.] Go, seek him there.
"Ham. [Calling after them.] He will stay till you come."
This dash of the grotesque, in his occasional words, enhances
the effect of the profound and settled sadness dwelling within Hamlet's soul; just as the circumstance of the skull, which the grave-digger throws up at Hamlet's feet, being that of a jester, augments the solemnity of the event. Its being the skeleton head of that soul of whim and mad waggery, upon whose shoulder the boy Hamlet had ridden a thousand times, gives additional awe to the sympathetic shudder with which we behold him handle and moralise upon it. In the same manner, the boorish jokes of the two grave-digging downs increase the grim melancholy of the church-yard scene.
I will say a few words upon the feigned madness of Hamlet, and, as succinctly as I am able, justify my argument by authorities from his own speech and action.
The readers of this most mysterious of all the characters in Shakespeare are divided into those who believe in his real insanity, occasioned by that awful accumulation of circumstances,--the revealing of his father's spirit j the promulgation of his murder and the tremendous responsibility arising out of it, to avenge his violent and unnatural death :--while the other party hold the opinion that the poet intended to convey nothing more than the assumed madness of the prince, for the purpose of shrouding his course of retribution.
That this latter is the true reading of the character, the
following passages appear to be confirmatory.
In the 1st Act, after the scene with the Ghost, he prepares
Horatio and Marcellus for the part he is about to act :
" As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on"
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Afterwards, in the scene with his mother, (Act iii., sc.4,) when he has again seen his father's ghost, she calling his behaviour upon the occasion, "ecstacy, the coinage of his brain," he replies :
" Ecstacy! My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music: it is not madness That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And 1 the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from."
And at the close of the same scene, he counsels his mother not to allow the king to worm from her his secret :
" Let him not Make you to ravel all this matter out, That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft."
But the strongest proof of all that his insanity is assumed is, that in his soliloquies he never utters an incoherent phrase. When he is alone, he reasons clearly and consistently;--it may be inconclusively, because he seeks in sophism an excuse for deferring the task of revenge imposed upon him ;--but it is always coherently. At the close of the celebrated soliloquy,--"To be, or not to be,"--than which nothing more grandly reflective and heart-absorbing was ever penned by poet, he is surprised at finding that he has been overheard in his rationality by Ophelia, who is at the back of the scene; and he then immediately begins to wander, in order that he may maintain his scheme of delusion; his language to her being the naturally conceived expression of an over-heated and excited brain, and not the disjointed incoherency of the incurable maniac.
Especially fine, too, is he in that soliloquy of the 4th scene, Act iv., after meeting with the forces of Fortinbras; and
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which speech Schlegel justly describes as being the key to the character of the prince. Hamlet says, sedately reflecting:
" Rightly to be great,
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then, That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? While, to my shame, I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men, That for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds."
This greatly reasoning scene is never represented on the stage ;--and, by the way, it has not unfrequently been the practice to argue on a question in Shakespeare's plays, from what is known of them through the actors; yet the theatrical copies are so notoriously abridged, that it is impossible to judge fairly of the poet's delineation of character, who never wrote a line that did not harmonise with, and tend to define the portrait he was limning.
In the scenes, too, with his heart-friend, Horatio, Hamlet is uniformly rational :--with one exception only; and that is immediately after the play-scene, and the discovery of the king's appalled conscience, when the wild words he utters may be fairly imputed to the result of his excitement, consequent upon the confirmation of the Ghost's murder-tale.
With the players, too, and the grave-digger, where it is unnecessary to maintain the consistency of the part he had assumed, he is perfectly collected, and even utters sound criticism and profound philosophy. His apology to Laertes, wherein he decidedly imputes his former misconduct to mental aberration, is the nearest approach to a confirmation of the idea that he has been really insane: but this scene takes place in the presence of the whole court, whom he has all
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along intended to deceive,--his revenge, moreover, being still left un accomplished. I therefore conclude, and I think reasonably, that they have read the whole play with very little reflection who conceive that Shakespeare intended to portray real, and not feigned madness in the conduct of Hamlet.
I should suppose that there never was a more artistical piece of dramatic event achieved (at all events, my own reading cannot quote its rival) than the arrangement of the machinery in the first scene of this play, for the introduction of the Ghost. How gradual, how solemn, and withal how serene, are its approaches: the opening eyelids of the dawn not more impressive. We first behold the soldier, Francisco, on his watch. The stillness of the scene is broken by the password of his comrade, Bernardo, who comes to relieve guard, and take Francisco's post. His natural question to his predecessor,-u Have you had quiet guard?" for Bernardo knows of the spirit's appearance, and wishes to discover whether Francisco have seen it also. To him, however, U not a mouse has been stirring." And here I would draw attention to one of the most signal examples of the far-sightedness and comprehension of his subject on the part of the poet, which occurs in the first two sentences of this play; the purport of which is so subtle, that it must escape the casual and light reader. Francisco is the guard on duty; and Bernardo, coming in to relieve him, calls out, U Who's there? "--which challenge the other naturally retorts, with, "Nay, a1lswer me " stand, and unfold yourself." Bernardo being full of the apparition that he and Marcellus .had witnessed the night before, in his perturbation questions everything he encounters in the night gloom. And when he is about to be left alone on the platform,--midnight close at hand,--the awful point of time for the visitation, he anxiously commissions
Francisco, U If you do meet Horatio yd Marcellus, the
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rivals of my watch, bid them make haste." III Immediately upon this, the two in question enter: Horatio having come to prove the truth of what had been reported to him by the other two,--he doubting the fact. Marcellus, who had been a witness of the apparition, calls it, "This dreaded sight twice seen of us." Now, all this appears to me the perfection of forethought, with contrivance. Horatio, still doubtful, says: “Tush, tush, 'twill not appear." Then Bernardo adds circumstance to the testimony of his companion :
" Last night of all,
When yond' same star that's westward from the pole, Had made his course t' illume that part of heav'n Where now it burns; Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one,
" Peace! break thee off," exclaims Marcellus, "look where it comes again."
How thrillingly grand is all this! and how natural! Still, the dignity of the event is to be sustained; and Horatio being the “scholar," also the bosom-friend of Hamlet, is urged to address the spirit:--and here again, it is noticeable, that though all three are officers and gentlemen, yet the language of Horatio is cast in a more classical mould than that of the others, and this unvaryingly so throughout. How solemn and how deprecatory is his abjuration!
“ What art thou, that usurp'st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form,
In which the majesty of buried
Did sometimes march?--By heaven I charge thee, speak!"
The spirit stalks away, deigning no reply; the consummation of its errand is yet to be fulfilled: it is yet to speak; and
. This lecture was written some years before a zealous and clever article appeared in the Quarterly Review, upon" Hamlet, "--in which this prevision of his plan by the poet was noticed.
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to no ears but those of Hamlet. his doubting comrade:
Marcellus now exclaims to
“ How now, Horatio! you tremble, and look pale. Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on 't ?
"Ror. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes."
In the midst of a conversation of conjecture and surmise that ensues upon this event, Horatio again brings forward his classical accomplishments; and, what is remarkable, Shakespeare has put into his mouth a complete anticipation of the Newtonian theory of the tides. All this bye-play is to add dignity to Horatio, the friend and companion of the hero. After speaking of the prodigies that are said to have appeared in
" The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;"
he concludes :
" And the moist star [the moon]
Upon whose influence
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse."
Then follows that sweetly solemn winding up of the scene,' after the second vanishing, at the crowing of the cock, with the remembrance of that pious superstition as recorded by Marcellus--and what an exquisitely poetical term to use!
“ It faded at the crowing of the cock."
Let anyone try to find a more apt phrase than that to
describe the dissolving of a shade into the elements, and he
will be lucky if he succeed. Macbeth presents an even more
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vivid picture to the imagination upon the vanishing of the witches: -- "What seem'd corporal," he says, "melted as breath into the wind."
Marcellus then concludes :
"Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm; So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."
Horatio, the scholar and the philosopher, consistently answers :
" So have I heard, and do in part believe it."
It will be recollected that he was sceptical as to the appearance of the ghost. Wonderfully artistical is that discrimination between the minds of Horatio and Marcellus. And then, lastly, what poetry in the breaking up of their conference!
“ But, look, the morn in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill. Break we our watch up."
In this introductory scene we are presented with all the chief characteristics of the sublime; and of which, not the least prevailing feature is the effect produced by the gigantic power of stillness. The quiet midnight; the cold and misty moon; the wondering under-breath discourse of those who had assembled to witness that tremendous vision. The awful and unsubstantial form itself, in silent and majestic sorrow passing among, and about them, and yet not with them; present, and yet absent; cognisable, identical, and yet intangible. This all-absorbing, this mighty abstraction, congealed, as it were, into a stern reality, in dumb eloquence and thrilling
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stillness announces to us the coming events of a heart-shaking tragedy. Great is the majesty of "Silence," says Thomas Carlyle; and I know of nothing comparable in grandeur with the still and silent course of the first introduction of the Ghost in Hamlet.
At the subsequent appearance of that awful form, which occurs in the closet scene between the Prince and his mother, Shakespeare,. so far from having committed an anti-climax, (which must have happened to an ordinary dramatist,) has even more deeply rooted our interest in the sorrows of the "perturbed spirit;" for, on his first coming, the motive for appearing to his son being to stir him to revenge, he would tardily and scantily have carried our sympathies with him; but his. second appearance is blended with an emotion of tenderness towards her who had lain in his bosom in her days of innocence and happiness; in those days when
" She would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on:"
and who now was stricken to the heart with blood-guiltiness and remorse.
" But look, amazement on thy mother sits:
Oh! step between her and her fighting sou1."
In the first scene with his son, when charging him to revenge the "foul and unnatural murder," he enjoins exception in behalf of his guilty queen :
"But, howsoever thou pursu'st this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught; leave her to Heaven.
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, To prick and sting her."
It was just like the divine humanity in our poet to foster,
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the idea of love in that life beyond life, still hovering with angelic tenderness and pardon over his weak and repentant partner in the flesh. And how beautifully this little touch of yearning emotion on the part of the spirit harmonises with the previous character given of him by his son :
" So loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly."
It is the verifying these points of harmony and consistency in the creations of this wonderful genius, that makes the study of his productions a constant source of astonishment as well as delight.
Horatio is not merely the gentleman and scholar, as has been observed, and therefore worthy to be the companion of Hamlet; but the higher attractions of his honourable nature, his bland and trusting disposition, his prudent mind, and steadfastly affectionate heart, have raised him to the highest social rank that man can attain in this world--he is his prince's confidant and bosom-friend. The character of Horatio is the only spot of sun-light in the play; and he is a cheering, though not a joyous gleam coming across the dark hemisphere of treachery, mistrust, and unkindness. The cheerfulness of the grave-digger arises from an intimacy with, and a callous indifference to his occupation, which, as Horatio says,
"Custom hath made in him a property of easiness."
It is the result, too, of a healthy old age; or, in some sort, it Is not a sentiment, but a physical consequence; even a negation.
But in the deportment of Horatio we have the constant recognition of a placid and pensive man; making no protestations, yet constantly prepared for gentle service. Modest,
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and abiding his time to be appreciated, his friendship for Hamlet is a purely disinterested principle, and the Prince bears high testimony to it,--an illustrious and eloquent tribute to the qualities of his head and heart :
"Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.
"Hor. O! my dear lord!
" Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter:
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits,
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flat
ter'd ?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp;
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself: for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing;
A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and bless'd are those Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled, That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee."
And all this is no lip-deep attestation. Horatio has it, and has earned it. As he adhered to his friend through life, so would he have followed him in death; and only consented to survive him that he might redeem his character with the world. It is worthy of notice, that Horatio's speeches, after the first scene, consist almost entirely of simple assents to the observations of Hamlet; but when the final catastrophe has ensued, he comes forward, and assumes the prerogative of his position; and, as the companion and consent of his Prince, he
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takes his station by Fortinbras, and the ambassadors, and at once assumes the office of moral executor and apologist for his friend. Was there no forethought,--no contrivance in all this subtle consecution of action? To me there is an indescribable charm in this Doric order of friendship and attachment, which Shakespeare has so frequently repeated in his plays :--simple, and unornate in exterior pretension; but
"massive and steadfast in design and structure.
With scarcely an exception, no one character in this tragedy has, I think, been worked out with more pains and accurate consistency, than that of the Lord Chamberlain, old Polonius. In his conduct and demeanour the critical task has been achieved of blending the highest useful wisdom (the knowledge of mankind) with the garrulity of an imbecile old age. Although Polonius, however, prates away at all times, and never omits an occasion to proffer his opinion, yet he does not babble; for no one dispenses sounder advice, or speaks more practical axioms. These, it is true, from his courtly education and gold-stick employment, he frequently converts into the" crooked wisdom" of cunning and manreuvre ; for, so carefully is his conduct laid out by the poet, that every
one of his plans has in it a double-move, as it were, (like a game of chess,) before he makes his hit. Polonius is a
thorough-paced diplomatist, and seems to have (like the bulk of his tribe) a positive horror of simple and sincere action: as if stratagem and circumvention were the genius and staple of 'political commerce. His well-known advice to his son, Laertes, upon the young man's leave-taking for
" Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There,--my blessing with you!
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And these few precepts in thy memory.
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,
Bear't, that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's measure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be :
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,--to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell: my blessing season this in thee,"
Here we see the instinct and native disposition of the man; but when his object is to obtain an account of the mode of life his son is leading in
join his young master; giving him licence to lie, and traduce the conduct of Laertes at home, in order that he may induce his French associates to betray any irregularities that he may have committed in their company. This scene is the first of the 2d Act; and a masterpiece of writing it is --at that point of it especially-- where the old man hurries himself out of breath with explanation, and suddenly forgetting the thread of his instruction, exclaims : " Where was I? Where was I?" It is like a dialogue taken in shorthand.
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Again, in the scene with his daughter, (the -conclusion of
the one just quoted,) when she comes running in to inform him of Hamlet's altered behaviour, how characteristic is the se1f-rebuke of the practised courtier, in having desired her to decline the prince's advances, and refuse his letters; and with what close and practical experience he concludes his observation upon her report:
" That hath made him mad.
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
I had not quoted him; I fear'd he did but trifle, And meant to wreck thee; but, beshrew my jealousy! It seems as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion."
Here, we see, he regrets his over-caution; for, that he would have promoted (and rationally) a safe alliance for his daughter with the heir to the throne: yet afterwards, in conversation with the king and queen, he makes a merit of having confronted her, and solely on the ground of the disparity of their conditions :
"Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;
This must not be: and then I precepts gave her, That she should lock herself from his resort, Admit no messengers, receive no tokens."
How accurately does all this shuffling and moral imbecility square with the temporising courtier I Yet again; his tendency to manceuvre and insincerity are- noticeable in his making Ophelia act a part in the scene he had contrived for discovering whether the madness of Hamlet were confirmed or not :
" Ophelia, walk you here, . . .
. . . . . . . . . Read on this book; That show of such an exercise may colour Your loneliness."
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And then the genuine nature of the honourable man stares out of the artificial man of society. He says to himself :
" We are oft to blame in this,
'Tis too much prov'd,-that with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar O' er
The devil himself."
So thorough, so pliant, and hard-working a courtier is he, that he even offered to act the eaves-dropper to the king, that he may report to him the result of the interview between Hamlet and his mother-an act which brings upon him so terrible a retribution; but which, at the same time, preaches a caustic moral to all disreputable, uncompromising timeservers: the moral being the more stringent in his case, because, by nature, Polonius possessed an instinct of honour and self-respect, which a course of unworthy pliancy and intrigue (perhaps almost inseparable from his office) had soiled and tainted.
In introducing the character of the ill-starred and forlorn Ophelia, I will, previously, take occasion to offer a remark or two upon that part of the celebrated dissertation on Hamlet, by Goethe, in his "Wilhelm Meister," which bears upon one phase in her conduct.
The eminent German critic starts with the position that Ophelia possessed a temperament which would lead her to become an easy prey wherever her fancy had been attracted; and, having taken that point, he draws his conclusions from the warnings given to her by both father and brother, to be upon her guard in admitting the addresses of the Lord Hamlet; and he crowns his inferences by quoting the snatches of songs she sings during her madness, as the foregone conclusions of a mind (to use the mildest term) not tempered with the chariest discretion, or habituated to the most delicate associations.
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Now, all this appears to me the question-begging of one who would merge all love into the sensual, at the expense of the idea, -- a conclusion totally unwarrantable in the case of Ophelia; for the only confession we have of her love for Hamlet is wholly comprised ill the absorbing adoration of
his intellectual endowments-a higher order of love than Goethe seems to think her capable of even discovering. With a passionately chaste lament, she says:
"Oh! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword; The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sov'reign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh."
This is not the language of a gross or even a light-minded
female, which Goethe, with all his wariness, and ingenuity of expression, would have his readers think Ophelia to be. Nor would Shakespeare have given to her a complaint of such character and tone, had she been deceived, and then deserted by Hamlet Moreover, we may be sure that she was not in any form-a victim to her wantonness, or his infidelity; for, after her death, in an ecstacy of genuine passion, he says : " I loved her above forty thousand brothers!" And he would not have used that language had his intercourse with her been a merely illicit one.
As to that branch of the critic's argument, drawn from the warning of Ophelia's father and brother, it is unnecessary to remind any adult that such a precaution is perfectly consistent with the most spotless purity of heart, where that heart is wholly occupied and absorbed by the one sentiment and passion of love and admiration: the father and brother both
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recognising the irresponsible position of the prince; and this, joined with their fears and jealousy lest she betray the
family honour; while that is a natural precaution on their part, (both being men of the world, and the artificial world of a court-and such a court as that of Claudius the murdercr and adulterer) whatever the precaution (I say) on their part, it by no means involves, or even implies, a laxity on hers.
With regard to the critic's inuendo (and this is the least reputable of his insinuations) respecting her real character, drawn from the songs she sings during her insanity; Goethe, as a psychologist, ought to have known that no such conclusion can be drawn from the actions of a person under that suspension : on the contrary, it is an argument of her native innocence of character; and Shakespeare knew this two hundred years before Goethe lived; experience constantly reminding us that insane people are wont to be, for the time, the total opposites of their real natures-your madmen plotting to kill those whom they most loved when in a state of sanity; your profligates breaking forth into piety; your pious into blasphemies; and your most reserved and chaste indulging in a laxity of expression astonishing to those who knew their former course of life and principles. And, after all, these same snatches of songs, alluded to by Goethe, and which, by the way, consist of two, and not much in those, they display the constant thought and contrivance of the poet to carryon within as well as without the scene a continuity and consistency of thought, as well as of action in the character. Upon referring again to the passage for my present purpose, I can come to no other conclusion than that he intended to convey in those wanderings of Ophelia the reflected lights of last reflections in her sane moments, resulting from the warning and advice that had been given to her in admitting the advances and protestations of her royal
lover; but that they were intended to be the foregone
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conclusions of an unstable virtue, could only proceed, I think, from a prurient mind, apt for catching at such a suggestion.
I regret, though I confess I am not surprised at the tone of this commentary in the eminent critic, since I have never been able entirely to shake off the idea that Goethe himself
was not wholly untainted with the leaven of grossness; and therefore was the more apt at imputation. The celebrated Bettina, in one of her letters to him, makes the remark, that she wonders from what class in society he chose his heroines, they are such questionable people. I am sure that in the self-absorption of the homage toll-fee Goethe's appetite was grossness itself.
In how much finer a spirit has Doctor Bucknill, in his admirable work on the" Psychology of Shakespeare," appreciated the character of Ophelia. Doctor Bucknill is the superintendent of a lunatic asylum, and therefore speaks with authority. He says,
"The not very delicate warning of Ophelia's disagreeable brother, that she is likely to lose her honour to Hamlet's unmastered importunity, is evidently distasteful to the poor girl, and gives occasion to the only sparkle of displeasure which the gentle creature ever shows, in that quick-witted retaliation of advice :
`But, my good brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own read.' "
Ophelia's reference to the primrose path of dalliance which her libertine brother was likely to tread, shows, from the first, that her purity of mind is not the result of ignorance. Her belief in the honour and truth of her lover, Bucknill adds, is the" credulity of innocence, but not of stupidity." Old Dan Chaucer says of the Duchess Blanche of
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" I say not she knew no evil, Then had she known no good, So seemeth me."
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are favourable samples of the thorough-paced, time-serving court knave-servants of all-work, ticketed, and to be hired for any hard or dirty job. Shakespeare has at once, and unequivocally, signified his opinion of the race, by making Rosencrantz, the time-server, the schoolfellow of Hamlet, and, under the colour of their early associations, professing a personal friendship: even an affection for him, at the very time that he had accepted the office of spy upon his actions, and traitor to his confidence. "Good, my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely but bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend," Immediately upon the heel of this protestation he accepts the king's commission to convey his friend" to
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a horse-power to put it in action; or like the painstaking of Bardolph, who stole the lute-case, carried it seven leagues, and sold it for three-halfpence. The same great master-spirit -Shakespeare-has made another time-server say, "How wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!" but how much more wretched is that poor prince who needs such hangers-on as Guildenstern and Rosencrantz! What a hell on earth has the man who is the suborner of meanness and villany -- the constant sense of subjection-the instinctive sense of insincerity and sham respect-the rising of the gorge at the fawning and the mouth-honour, the self-inspection, (which will come,) the surmises, the fears, the trepidations, the heartaches: Ye Verily, both parties have their reward," even here, "on this bank and shoal of time." I know of no bitterer satire upon the compact between state hire and state service than is put into the mouth of this Rosencrantz, addressed to such a king as Hamlet's uncle!
" The single and peculiar life is bound, With all the strength and armour of the mind, To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more That spirit, upon whose weal depend and rest The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but like a gulph doth draw What's near it with it; it is a massy wheel, Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoin'd, which when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan."
This is a specimen of time-server logic for an act of state policy: it is the argument of a hireling to sugar over the king's act to murder Hamlet, in order that the peace and safety of the suborner may be secured. Assuredly, no one has been less of a flatterer, with stronger inducements to be
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one, than Shakespeare. In the spirit of just retribution, these two worthies fall into the trap they had set for their old friend and schoolfellow.
On another occasion I have spoken of Shakespeare's large discourse upon the" Philosophy of War," and its utter worthlessness. In the short scene between Hamlet and the captain of Fortinbras--and which, as already observed, is never acted,-we have the poet again upon the same theme, but in a calm and lofty vein of satire, exposing the contemptible grounds upon which these vicegerents on earth will play their bloody gambols at the expense of the life and treasure of those uninterested in the game. Shakespeare was our first poet who saw and exposed its absurdity; and Cowper was the last, who followed it out with a dash of radicalism in the sentiment: "But war is a game, which, were their subjects wise, kings would not play at."
The dialogue I have alluded to is an edifying commentary upon the light causes and grave effects of strife and contention. Hamlet says to the captain;
" Good sir, whose powers are these?
"Capt. They are of
"Ham. How purposed, sir, I pray you?
"Capt. Against some part of
"Ham. Goes it against the main of
frontier?
"Capt. Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground,
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it j
Nor will it yield to
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
"Ham. Why, then, the Polack never will defend it. "Capt. Yes, 'tis already garrison'd.
"Ham. Two thousand souls, and twenty thdusand ducats,
Will not debate the question of this straw;
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"[Ham.] This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man dies,"
How searching that philosophy! and what truth and felicity in the metaphor, with its application! Hamlet, afterwards when ruminating upon this circumstance in connexion with his own irresolute action, says, (as already quoted,)
"To my shame, I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men, That for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds; fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough, and continent, To hide the slain."
I have always been struck with the dialogue between 11amlet and Osric, the" gilded water-fly," as he terms him, who comes to announce to the Prince the wager at fence with r .aertes. Who that has ever observed the action of that peculiar insect,-skimming to and fro, and round and round upon the water's face, with no apparent purpose but mere inconsequence,-can fail to recognise the aptitude of that assimilation ?-the "gilded water-fly" too!
The choice language and peculiar idiom of the dandy lord, with the superior bearing and regal dignity of the Prince, not carrying with it the slightest tinge of insolence or "pride of place"-(I repeat, there is no perfecter gentleman drawn than Hamlet)-his fooling Osric to the "top of his bent," is in the pure spirit of the highest-bred gentility :
" Your bonnet, sir, to his right use; 'tis for the head.
"Osr. I thank your lordship; 'tis very hot.
"Ham. No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is northerly. "Osr. It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
"Ham. But yet, methinks, it is very sultry and hot; or my
complexion
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"Osr. Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,-as 'twere, --
I cannot tell how."
With all his vapid pliancy, however, when Osric comes to speak upon the accomplishments which alone, in those days, betokened the gentleman, Shakespeare knew that he must no longer make him contemptible: in descanting, therefore, upon Laertes' pretensions, he is made to use the choicest terms, describing him as an "absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very soft society, and great showing." And he dilates upon the weapons that are to be used with an accurate and professor-like technicality, and in language as polished as their blades: "Six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, hangers, and so. Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit." Upon referring to this scene, it will be observed, I think, that Shakespeare, in Hamlet's mouth, intended to ridicule the dandy nomenclature of the day; for, with an amusing air of simplicity, he takes the tone of a stranger to the mysteries of the profession of arms, requiring an explanation of the terms so fluently used by Osric. It may appear affected to attach importance to a scene like this-trifling, indeed, as compared with the solemn and gigantic events that have transpired in the course of the drama; yet this simple and very natural prelude to the quenching of the noble spirit
of the hero, produces, in my mind, a sense of reality and of pathos that are more easily suggested than explained, and suffers no detraction; if, indeed, it be not heightened by the gentle and modest tone in which the Prince dismisses the messenger :
" Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me:, let the foils be
brought, the gentleman willing, and the King hold his
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purpose, I will win for him if I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame, and the odd hits."
Amid the glittering firmament of beauties with which this amazing drama is studded, it is no questionable homage to turn aside and examine with interest so insignificant a character as that of Osric; and, moreover, for the mind to come to the satisfactory conclusion that even the great master-movers in the scene are not more ably conceived, or produced with greater force or truth to nature.
It is immediately after his accepting the challenge that the " coming event" of his death, "casting its shadow" across the mind of Hamlet, draws from him that affecting confession to his bosom friend, Horatio; and which, as associated with all the circumstances of his unhappy mission, together with the deep and solemn piety of his comment, I confess, I never even recur to without an indescribable emotion of awe and reverence. He says:
"Thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my
heart --but 'tis no matter.
"Hor. Nay, my good lord,
"Ham. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain
giving as would, perhaps, trouble a woman.
"Hor. If your mind dislike anything, obey it : I will
forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit.
"Ham. Not a whit ;-we defy augury: there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now
yet it will come--the readiness is all."
Ah! when the ignorant or the thoughtless, or, the worse than both, the hypocritical, talk of Shakespeare's immorality, refer them to this simple and beautiful little homily upon resignation and reliance.
Laertes is one of that large class in humanity of the level standard in morals,-loud, turbulent, and boisterous in
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profession; yet so weak in judgment, and unjust in act, (and injustice must always involve a perversion of intellect,) that, for the purposes of revenge, he will become the principal in the plot to commit treachery and murder--at the same time, in strict accordance with such a disposition and temperament, he is remorse-stricken at the issue of his villany. This is human nature in facsimile. It was a touch of fine art in the poet to place the character and deportment of Laertes in contrast with that of his victim, at the immediate point of time when he was about to put his plot in action.
The apology Hamlet makes for his previous excitement towards the brother of Ophelia, at her grave, is conceived in the very highest sense of magnanimity and gentle bearing : "gentle" in every sense, a perfect gentleman. In concluding his speech, he says :
" Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts, That I have shot mine arrow o' er the house, And hurt my brother."
While we are upon the subject of" contrasts," how fruitful a theme for reflection is the whole of the grave-digging scene: how full of character; full of unexpected thought j and how free from effort and display of every kind,-in short-for the thousandth time-_ “how natural!" The thoughtless gaiety of the sexton, singing over his work j "Custom having made it in him a property of easiness," as Horatio says, and, as Hamlet beautifully follows up the explanation, "The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense:"--a philosophical apology for those unimaginative classes in society whose sole occupation is connected with the last offices of life, and the first of death. Indeed, our beloved Shakespeare had a considerate and a gentle heart.
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Again,- in contrast, -the recognition of Yorick's skull, and the two men's characteristic associations with the same individual ;-the clown remembering him for a "pestilent mad rogue, who had poured a flagon of Rhenish on his head; "-the practical jokes only of the jester remained in the sexton's memory. Hamlet recalls his social and intellectual qualities; an epitaph to his fame, and a lecture upon vanity that will be coeval with poetry itself;
“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my
imagination it is I--my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table in a roar? --
Not one now to mock at your grinning? quite chapfallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber; and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that."
The rise, progress, and consummation of the whole plot of the tragedy of Hamlet is a consistent theme upon the conflict between determination and irresolution, arising from over-reflection; and in nothing throughout the whole scheme of the play is the art of the poet more grandly developed than in making the vaccillation of the hero to turn solely upon that over-reflectiveness of his nature; and indeed, under the circumstances, it was Shakespeare's only resource. Had Hamlet wavered from any other cause, we must have dismissed him with disrespect; as it is, we make the handsomest excuse for him; and, in short, elevate him in our esteem by the acknowledgment that he was the most unfit instrument for the mission Imposed upon him, simply because he had a mind superior to the carrying of it out in detail.
And, to conclude so pigmy a comment. as the one now
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presented upon this giant of philosophical dramas; rise from it when we may, and as often as we may, our hearts are warmed by wiser and holier thoughts; and our sole comment upon the creative mind that was permitted to give such a work to his fellow-mortals may well be summed up in the words of his own hero :
" How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God!"