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

Must render vp my selfe.

Ham. Alas poore Ghost.

Gho. Pitty me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall vnfold.

Ham. Speake, I am bound to heare.

Gho. So art thou to reuenge, when thou shalt heare.

Ham. What?

Gho. I am thy Fathers Spirit, Doom'd for a certaine terme to walke the night;[2] And for the day confin'd to fast in Fiers,[3] Till the foule crimes done in my dayes of Nature Are burnt and purg'd away? But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my Prison-House; I could a Tale vnfold, whose lightest word[4] Would harrow vp thy soule, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes like Starres, start from their Spheres, Thy knotty and combined locks to part, [Sidenote: knotted] And each particular haire to stand an end,[5] Like Quilles vpon the fretfull[6] Porpentine [Sidenote: fearefull[6]] But this eternall blason[7] must not be To eares of flesh and bloud; list Hamlet , oh list,
[Sidenote: blood, list, ô list;] If thou didst euer thy deare Father loue.

Ham. Oh Heauen![8] [Sidenote: God]

Gho. Reuenge his foule and most vnnaturall Murther.[9]

Ham. Murther?

Ghost. Murther most foule, as in the best it is; But this most foule, strange, and vnnaturall.

Ham. Hast, hast me to know it, [Sidenote: Hast me to know't,] That with wings as swift

[Footnote 1: The night is the Ghost's day.]

[Footnote 2: To walk the night, and see how things go, without being able to put a finger to them, is part of his cleansing.]

[Footnote 3: More horror yet for Hamlet.]

[Footnote 4: He would have him think of life and its doings as of awful import. He gives his son what warning he may.]

[Footnote 5: An end is like agape, an hungred . 71, 175.]

[Footnote 6: The word in the Q. suggests fretfull a misprint for
frightful . It is fretfull in the 1st Q. as well.]

[Footnote 7: To blason is to read off in proper heraldic terms the arms blasoned upon a shield. A blason is such a reading, but is here used for a picture in words of other objects.]

[Footnote 8: -in appeal to God whether he had not loved his father.]

[Footnote 9: The horror still accumulates. The knowledge of evil-not evil in the abstract, but evil alive, and all about him-comes darkening down upon Hamlet's being. Not only is his father an inhabitant of the nether fires, but he is there by murder.]

[Page 52]

As meditation, or the thoughts of Loue, May sweepe to my Reuenge.[1]

Ghost. I finde thee apt, And duller should'st thou be then the fat weede[2] [Sidenote: 194] That rots it selfe in ease, on Lethe Wharfe,[4]
[Sidenote: rootes[3]] Would'st thou not stirre in this. Now Hamlet heare: It's giuen out, that sleeping in mine Orchard, [Sidenote: 'Tis] A Serpent stung me: so the whole eare of Denmarke, Is by a forged processe of my death Rankly abus'd: But know thou Noble youth, The Serpent that did sting thy Fathers life, Now weares his Crowne.

[Sidenote: 30,32] Ham. O my Propheticke soule: mine Vncle?[5]
[Sidenote: my]

Ghost. I that incestuous, that adulterate Beast[6] With witchcraft of his wits, hath Traitorous guifts.
[Sidenote: wits, with] Oh wicked Wit, and Gifts, that haue the power So to seduce? Won to to this shamefull Lust [Sidenote: wonne to his] The will of my most seeming vertuous Queene: Oh Hamlet , what a falling off was there, [Sidenote: what failing] From me, whose loue was of that dignity, That it went hand in hand, euen with[7] the Vow I made to her in Marriage; and to decline Vpon a wretch, whose Naturall gifts were poore To those of mine. But Vertue, as it neuer wil be moued, Though Lewdnesse court it in a shape of Heauen: So Lust, though to a radiant Angell link'd, [Sidenote: so but though] Will sate it selfe in[8] a Celestiall bed, and prey on Garbage.[9]
[Sidenote: Will sort it selfe] But soft, me thinkes I sent the Mornings Ayre; [Sidenote: morning ayre,] Briefe let me be: Sleeping within mine Orchard, [Sidenote: my] My custome alwayes in the afternoone; [Sidenote: of the] Vpon my secure hower thy Vncle stole

[Footnote 1: Now, for the moment , he has no doubt, and vengeance is his first thought.]

[Footnote 2: Hamlet may be supposed to recall this, if we suppose him afterwards to accuse himself so bitterly and so unfairly as in the
Quarto , 194.]

[Footnote 3: Also 1st Q .]

[Footnote 4: landing-place on the bank of Lethe, the hell-river of oblivion.]

[Footnote 5: This does not mean that he had suspected his uncle, but that his dislike to him was prophetic.]

[Footnote 6: How can it be doubted that in this speech the Ghost accuses his wife and brother of adultery? Their marriage was not adultery. See how the ghastly revelation grows on Hamlet-his father in hell-murdered by his brother-dishonoured by his wife!]

[Footnote 7: parallel with; correspondent to .]

[Footnote 8: 1st Q . 'fate itself from a'.]

[Footnote 9: This passage, from 'Oh Hamlet ,' most indubitably asserts the adultery of Gertrude.]

[Page 54]

With iuyce of cursed Hebenon[1] in a Violl, [Sidenote: Hebona] And in the Porches of mine eares did poure [Sidenote: my] The leaperous Distilment;[2] whose effect Holds such an enmity with bloud of Man, That swift as Quick-siluer, it courses[3] through The naturall Gates and Allies of the Body; And with a sodaine vigour it doth posset [Sidenote: doth possesse] And curd, like Aygre droppings into Milke, [Sidenote: eager[4]] The thin and wholsome blood: so did it mine; And a most instant Tetter bak'd about, [Sidenote: barckt about[5]] Most Lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, All my smooth Body. Thus was I, sleeping, by a Brothers hand, Of Life, of Crowne, and Queene at once dispatcht; [Sidenote: of Queene] [Sidenote: 164] Cut off euen in the Blossomes of my Sinne, Vnhouzzled, disappointed, vnnaneld,[6] [Sidenote: Vnhuzled, | vnanueld,] [Sidenote: 262] No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head; Oh horrible, Oh horrible, most horrible: If thou hast nature in thee beare it not; Let not the Royall Bed of Denmarke be A Couch for Luxury and damned Incest.[7] But howsoeuer thou pursuest this Act,
[Sidenote: howsomeuer thou pursues] [Sidenote: 30,174] Taint not thy mind; nor let thy Soule contriue [Sidenote: 140] Against thy Mother ought; leaue her to heauen, And to those Thornes that in her bosome lodge, To pricke and sting her. Fare thee well at once; The Glow-worme showes the Matine to be neere, And gins to pale his vneffectuall Fire: Adue, adue, Hamlet : remember me. Exit .
[Sidenote: Adiew, adiew, adiew, remember me.[8]]

Ham. Oh all you host of Heauen! Oh Earth: what els? And shall I couple Hell?[9] Oh fie[10]: hold my heart;
[Sidenote: hold, hold my] And you my sinnewes, grow not instant Old;

[Footnote 1: Ebony.]

[Footnote 2: producing leprosy -as described in result below.]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q . 'posteth'.]

[Footnote 4: So also 1st Q .]

[Footnote 5: This barckt -meaning cased as a bark cases its tree -is used in 1st Q . also: 'And all my smoothe body, barked, and tetterd ouer.' The word is so used in Scotland still.]

[Footnote 6: Husel (Anglo-Saxon) is an offering, the sacrament. Disappointed, not appointed : Dr. Johnson. Unaneled, unoiled, without the extreme unction .]

[Footnote 7: It is on public grounds, as a king and a Dane, rather than as a husband and a murdered man, that he urges on his son the execution of justice. Note the tenderness towards his wife that follows-more marked, 174; here it is mingled with predominating regard to his son to whose filial nature he dreads injury.]

[Footnote 8: Q . omits Exit .]

[Footnote 9: He must: his father is there!]

[Footnote 10: The interjection is addressed to heart and sinews , which forget their duty.]

[Page 56]

But beare me stiffely vp: Remember thee?[1] [Sidenote: swiftly vp] I, thou poore Ghost, while memory holds a seate [Sidenote: whiles] In this distracted Globe[2]: Remember thee? Yea, from the