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

[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 damned light [Sidenote: and a damned]

[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,
pronounced 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: coarse 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 passages 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 passages I had marked as being like passages 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 passage 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.]

[Page 104]

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 hellish Pyrrhus Old Grandsire Priam seekes.[1]
[Sidenote: seekes; so proceede you.[2]]

Pol . Fore God, 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: Marses Armor] With lesse remorse then Pyrrhus bleeding sword Now falles on Priam . [12] Out, out, thou Strumpet-Fortune, all you Gods, 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,

* * * * *

Which he, disdaining, whisk'd his sword about,
And with the wound[13] thereof the king fell down.

Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage .]

[Footnote 6: The Quarto has omitted ' Then senselesse Illium ,' or something else.]

[Footnote 7: Printed with the long f[symbol for archaic long s].]

[Footnote 8: -motionless as a tyrant in a picture.]

[Footnote 9: 'standing between his will and its object as if he had no relation to either.']

[Footnote 10:

And then in triumph ran into the streets,
Through which he could not pass for slaughtered men;
So, leaning on his sword, he stood stone still,
Viewing the fire wherewith rich Ilion burnt.

Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage .]

[Footnote 11: Who does not feel this passage, down to 'Region,' thoroughly Shaksperean!]

[Footnote 12: Is not the rest of this speech very plainly Shakspere's?]

[Footnote 13: wind , I think it should be.]

[Page 106]

And boule the round Naue downe the hill of Heauen, As low as to the Fiends.

Pol . This is too long.

Ham . It shall to'th Barbars, with your beard. [Sidenote: to the] Prythee say on: He's for a Iigge, or a tale of Baudry, or hee sleepes. Say on; come to Hecuba .

1. Play . But who, O who, had seen the inobled[1] Queen.
[Sidenote: But who, a woe, had | mobled[1]]

Ham . The inobled[1] Queene? [Sidenote: mobled]

Pol . That's good: Inobled[1] Queene is good.[2]

1. Play . Run bare-foot vp and downe, Threatning the flame [Sidenote: flames] With Bisson Rheume:[3] A clout about that head, [Sidenote: clout vppon] Where late the Diadem stood, and for a Robe About her lanke and all ore-teamed Loines,[4] A blanket in th'Alarum of feare caught vp. [Sidenote: the alarme] Who this had seene, with tongue in Venome steep'd, 'Gainst Fortunes State, would Treason haue pronounc'd?[5] But if the Gods themselues did see her then, When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport In mincing with his Sword her Husbands limbes,[6] [Sidenote: husband] The instant Burst of Clamour that she made (Vnlesse things mortall moue them not at all) Would haue made milche[7] the Burning eyes of Heauen, And passion in the Gods.[8]

Pol . Looke where[9] he ha's not turn'd his colour, and ha's teares in's eyes. Pray you no more. [Sidenote: prethee]

Ham . 'Tis well, He haue thee speake out the rest, soone. Good my Lord, will you see the [Sidenote: rest of this] Players wel bestow'd. Do ye heare, let them be [Sidenote: you] well vs'd: for they are the Abstracts and breefe [Sidenote: abstract] Chronicles of the time. After your death, you

[Footnote 1: ' mobled '-also in 1st Q .-may be the word: muffled seems a corruption of it: compare mob-cap , and

'The moon does mobble up herself'

- Shirley , quoted by Farmer ;

but I incline to ' inobled ,' thrice in the Folio -once with a capital: I take it to stand for 'ignobled,' degraded .]

[Footnote 2: 'Inobled Queene is good.' Not in Quarto .]

[Footnote 3: -threatening to put the flames out with blind tears: ' bisen,' blind -Ang. Sax.]

[Footnote 4: -she had had so many children.]

[Footnote 5: There should of course be no point of interrogation here.]

[Footnote 6:

This butcher, whilst his hands were yet held up,
Treading upon his breast, struck off his hands.

Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage .]

[Footnote 7: ' milche '-capable of giving milk: here capable of tears , which the burning eyes of the gods were not before.]

[Footnote 8: 'And would have made passion in the Gods.']

[Footnote 9: 'whether'.]

[Page 108]

were better haue a bad Epitaph, then their ill report while you liued.[1] [Sidenote: live]

Pol . My Lord, I will vse them according to their desart.

Ham . Gods bodykins man, better. Vse euerie
[Sidenote: bodkin man, much better,] man after his desart, and who should scape whipping: