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

[Sidenote: shall] vse them after your own Honor and Dignity. The lesse they deserue, the more merit is in your bountie. Take them in.

Pol . Come sirs. Exit Polon .[2]

Ham . Follow him Friends: wee'l heare a play to morrow.[3] Dost thou heare me old Friend, can you play the murther of Gonzago ?

Play . I my Lord.

Ham . Wee'l ha't to morrow night. You could for a need[4] study[5] a speech of some dosen or sixteene
[Sidenote: for neede | dosen lines, or] lines, which I would set downe, and insert in't? Could ye not?[6] [Sidenote: you]

Play . I my Lord.

Ham . Very well. Follow that Lord, and looke you mock him not.[7] My good Friends, Ile leaue you til night you are welcome to Elsonower ?
[Sidenote: Exeuent Pol. and Players .]

Rosin . Good my Lord. Exeunt .

Manet Hamlet .[8]

Ham . I so, God buy'ye[9]: Now I am alone. [Sidenote: buy to you,[9]] Oh what a Rogue and Pesant slaue am I?[10] Is it not monstrous that this Player heere,[11] But in a Fixion, in a dreame of Passion, Could force his soule so to his whole conceit,[12]
[Sidenote: his own conceit] That from her working, all his visage warm'd;
[Sidenote: all the visage wand,] Teares in his eyes, distraction in's Aspect, [Sidenote: in his] A broken voyce, and his whole Function suiting [Sidenote: an his] With Formes, to his Conceit?[13] And all for nothing?

[Footnote 1: Why do the editors choose the present tense of the
Quarto ? Hamlet does not mean, 'It is worse to have the ill report of the Players while you live, than a bad epitaph after your death.' The order of the sentence has provided against that meaning. What he means is, that their ill report in life will be more against your reputation after death than a bad epitaph.]

[Footnote 2: Not in Quarto .]

[Footnote 3: He detains their leader.]

[Footnote 4: 'for a special reason'.]

[Footnote 5: Study is still the Player's word for commit to memory .]

[Footnote 6: Note Hamlet's quick resolve, made clearer towards the end of the following soliloquy.]

[Footnote 7: Polonius is waiting at the door: this is intended for his hearing.]

[Footnote 8: Not in Q .]

[Footnote 9: Note the varying forms of God be with you .]

[Footnote 10: 1st Q .

Why what a dunghill idiote slaue am I?
Why these Players here draw water from eyes:
For Hecuba, why what is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?]

[Footnote 11: Everything rings on the one hard, fixed idea that possesses him; but this one idea has many sides. Of late he has been thinking more upon the woman-side of it; but the Player with his speech has brought his father to his memory, and he feels he has been forgetting him: the rage of the actor recalls his own 'cue for passion.' Always more ready to blame than justify himself, he feels as if he ought to have done more, and so falls to abusing himself.]

[Footnote 12: imagination .]

[Footnote 13: 'his whole operative nature providing fit forms for the embodiment of his imagined idea'-of which forms he has already mentioned his warmed visage , his tears , his distracted look , his
broken voice .

In this passage we have the true idea of the operation of the genuine
acting faculty . Actor as well as dramatist, the Poet gives us here his own notion of his second calling.]

[Page 110]

For Hecuba ? What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba ,[1]
[Sidenote: or he to her,] That he should weepe for her? What would he doe, Had he the Motiue and the Cue[2] for passion
[Sidenote: , and that for] That I haue? He would drowne the Stage with teares, And cleaue the generall eare with horrid speech: Make mad the guilty, and apale[3] the free,[4] Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed, The very faculty of Eyes and Eares. Yet I, [Sidenote: faculties] A dull and muddy-metled[5] Rascall, peake Like Iohn a-dreames, vnpregnant of my cause,[6] And can say nothing: No, not for a King, Vpon whose property,[7] and most deere life, A damn'd defeate[8] was made. Am I a Coward?[9] Who calles me Villaine? breakes my pate a-crosse? Pluckes off my Beard, and blowes it in my face? Tweakes me by'th'Nose?[10] giues me the Lye i'th' Throate,
[Sidenote: by the] As deepe as to the Lungs? Who does me this? Ha? Why I should take it: for it cannot be,
[Sidenote: Hah, s'wounds I] But I am Pigeon-Liuer'd, and lacke Gall[11] To make Oppression bitter, or ere this, [Sidenote: 104] I should haue fatted all the Region Kites
[Sidenote: should a fatted] With this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine,
[Sidenote: bloody, baudy] Remorselesse,[12] Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles[13] villaine! Oh Vengeance![14] Who? What an Asse am I? I sure, this is most braue,
[Sidenote: Why what an Asse am I, this] That I, the Sonne of the Deere murthered, [Sidenote: a deere] Prompted to my Reuenge by Heauen, and Hell, Must (like a Whore) vnpacke my heart with words, And fall a Cursing like a very Drab,[15] A Scullion? Fye vpon't: Foh. About my Braine.[16]
[Sidenote: a stallyon, | braines; hum,]

[Footnote 1: Here follows in 1st Q .

What would he do and if he had my losse?
His father murdred, and a Crowne bereft him,
[Sidenote: 174] He would turne all his teares to droppes of blood,
Amaze the standers by with his laments,

&c. &c.]

[Footnote 2: Speaking of the Player, he uses the player-word.]

[Footnote 3: make pale -appal.]

[Footnote 4: the innocent .]

[Footnote 5: Mettle is spirit-rather in the sense of animal-spirit :
mettlesome -spirited, as a horse .]

[Footnote 6: ' unpossessed by my cause'.]

[Footnote 7: personality, proper person .]

[Footnote 8: undoing, destruction -from French défaire .]

[Footnote 9: In this mood he no more understands, and altogether doubts himself, as he has previously come to doubt the world.]

[Footnote 10: 1st Q . 'or twites my nose.']

[Footnote 11: It was supposed that pigeons had no gall-I presume from their livers not tasting bitter like those of perhaps most birds.]

[Footnote 12: pitiless .]

[Footnote 13: unnatural .]

[Footnote 14: This line is not in the Quarto .]

[Footnote 15: Here in Q. the line runs on to include Foh . The next line ends with heard .]

[Footnote 16: Point thus : 'About! my brain.' He apostrophizes his brain, telling it to set to work.]

[Page 112]

I haue heard, that guilty Creatures sitting at a Play, Haue by the very cunning of the Scoene,[1] Bene strooke so to the soule, that presently They haue proclaim'd their Malefactions. For Murther, though it haue no tongue, will speake With most myraculous Organ.[2] Ile haue these Players, Play something like the murder of my Father, Before mine Vnkle. Ile obserue his lookes, [Sidenote: 137] Ile tent him to the quicke: If he but blench[3]
[Sidenote: if a doe blench] I