The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - George MacDonald (best ereader for pc .txt) 📗

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.]

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[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, ô answere] Let me not burst in Ignorance; but tell Why thy Canoniz'd bones Hearsed 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 Coarse 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 hearse was originally the bier-French herse , a harrow-but came to be applied to the coffin: hearsed 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 passage 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.']

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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 assumes some other horrible forme,[2]
[Sidenote: assume] 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.

Ham. Hold off your hand. [Sidenote: hands]

Hor. Be rul'd, you shall not goe.

Ham. My fate cries out, And makes each petty Artire[4] in this body, [Sidenote: arture[4]] As hardy as the Nemian Lions nerue: Still am I cal'd? Vnhand me Gentlemen: By Heau'n, Ile make a Ghost of him that lets me: I say away, goe on, Ile follow thee.

Exeunt Ghost & Hamlet.

Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.[5] [Sidenote: imagion]

Mar. Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.

Hor. Haue after, to what issue will this come?

Mar. Something is rotten in the State of Denmarke.

Hor. Heauen will direct it.

Mar. Nay, let's follow him. Exeunt.

Enter Ghost and Hamlet.

Ham. Where wilt thou lead me? speak; Ile go no further.
[Sidenote: Whether]

Gho. Marke me.

Ham. I will.

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto :-

The very place puts toyes of desperation Without more motiue, into euery braine That lookes so many fadoms to the sea And heares it rore beneath.]

[Footnote 1: 1st Q . 'beckles'-perhaps for buckles-bends .]

[Footnote 2: Note the unbelief in the Ghost.]

[Footnote 3: sovereignty- soul : so in Romeo and Juliet , act v. sc. 1, l. 3:-

My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne.]

[Footnote 4: The word artery , invariably substituted by the editors, is without authority. In the first Quarto, the word is Artiue ; in the second (see margin) arture . This latter I take to be the right one-corrupted into Artire in the Folio. It seems to have troubled the printers, and possibly the editors. The third Q. has followed the second; the fourth has artyre ; the fifth Q. and the fourth F. have
attire ; the second and third Folios follow the first. Not until the sixth Q. does artery appear. See Cambridge Shakespeare. Arture was to all concerned, and to the language itself, a new word. That artery was not Shakspere's intention might be concluded from its unfitness: what propriety could there be in making an artery hardy ? The sole, imperfect justification I was able to think of for such use of the word arose from the fact that, before the discovery of the circulation of the blood (published in 1628), it was believed that the arteries (found empty after death) served for the movements of the animal spirits: this might vaguely associate the arteries with courage . But the sight of the word arture in the second Quarto at once relieved me.

I do not know if a list has ever been gathered of the words made by Shakspere: here is one of them- arture , from the same root as artus, a joint-arcere, to hold together , adjective arctus, tight. Arture , then, stands for juncture . This perfectly fits. In terror the weakest parts are the joints, for their artures are not hardy . 'And you, my sinews, ... bear me stiffly up.' 55, 56.

Since writing as above, a friend informs me that arture is the exact equivalent of the [Greek: haphae] of Colossians ii. 19, as interpreted by Bishop Lightfoot-'the relation between contiguous limbs, not the parts of the limbs themselves in the neighbourhood of contact,'-for which relation 'there is no word in our language in common use.']

[Footnote 5: 'with the things he imagines.']

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Gho. My hower is almost come,[1] When I to sulphurous and tormenting Flames