The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by George MacDonald (read out loud books .TXT) 📖

pleasde mine eare,
Is now a burthen that Age cannot beare:
And therefore sweete Nature must pay his due,
To heauen must I, and leaue the earth with you.]

[Footnote 6: Here Hamlet gives the time his father and mother had been married, and Shakspere points at Hamlet's age. 234. The Poet takes pains to show his hero's years.]

[Footnote 7: This line, whose form in the Quarto is very careless, seems but a careless correction, leaving the sense as well as the construction obscure: 'Women's fear and love keep the scales level; in
neither is there ought, or in both there is fulness;' or: 'there is no moderation in their fear and their love; either they have none of either, or they have excess of both.' Perhaps he tried to express both ideas at once. But compression is always in danger of confusion.]

[Page 144]

King. Faith I must leaue thee Loue, and shortly too: My operant Powers my Functions leaue to do: [Sidenote: their functions] And thou shall liue in this faire world behinde, Honour'd, belou'd, and haply, one as kinde. For Husband shalt thou--

Bap. Oh confound the rest: [Sidenote: Quee. ] Such Loue, must needs be Treason in my brest: In second Husband, let me be accurst, None wed the second, but who kill'd the first.[1]

Ham. Wormwood, Wormwood. [Sidenote: Ham . That's wormwood[2]]

Bapt. The instances[3] that second Marriage moue, Are base respects of Thrift,[4] but none of Loue. A second time, I kill my Husband dead, When second Husband kisses me in Bed.

King. I do beleeue you. Think what now you speak: But what we do determine, oft we breake: Purpose is but the slaue to Memorie,[5] Of violent Birth, but poore validitie:[6] Which now like Fruite vnripe stickes on the Tree,
[Sidenote: now the fruite] But fall vnshaken, when they mellow bee.[7] Most necessary[8] 'tis, that we forget To pay our selues, what to our selues is debt: What to our selues in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of other Greefe or Ioy, [Sidenote: eyther,] Their owne ennactors with themselues destroy: [Sidenote: ennactures] Where Ioy most Reuels, Greefe doth most lament; Greefe ioyes, Ioy greeues on slender accident.[9]
[Sidenote: Greefe ioy ioy griefes] This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange That euen our Loues should with our Fortunes change. For 'tis a question left vs yet to proue, Whether Loue lead Fortune, or else Fortune Loue.

[Footnote 1: Is this to be supposed in the original play, or inserted by Hamlet, embodying an unuttered and yet more fearful doubt with regard to his mother?]

[Footnote 2: This speech is on the margin in the Quarto , and the Queene's speech runs on without break.]

[Footnote 3: the urgencies; the motives.]

[Footnote 4: worldly advantage.]

[Footnote 5: 'Purpose holds but while Memory holds.']

[Footnote 6: 'Purpose is born in haste, but is of poor strength to live.']

[Footnote 7: Here again there is carelessness of construction, as if the Poet had not thought it worth his while to correct this subsidiary portion of the drama. I do not see how to lay the blame on the printer.-'Purpose is a mere fruit, which holds on or falls only as it must. The element of persistency is not in it.']

[Footnote 8: unavoidable-coming of necessity.]

[Footnote 9: 'Grief turns into joy, and joy into grief, on a slight chance.']

[Page 146]

The great man downe, you marke his fauourites flies,
[Sidenote: fauourite] The poore aduanc'd, makes Friends of Enemies: And hitherto doth Loue on Fortune tend, For who not needs, shall neuer lacke a Frend: And who in want a hollow Friend doth try, Directly seasons him his Enemie.[1] But orderly to end, where I begun, Our Willes and Fates do so contrary run, That our Deuices still are ouerthrowne, Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our owne.[2] [Sidenote: 246] So thinke thou wilt no second Husband wed. But die thy thoughts, when thy first Lord is dead.

Bap. Nor Earth to giue me food, nor Heauen light, [Sidenote: Quee. ] Sport and repose locke from me day and night:[3] [A] Each opposite that blankes the face of ioy, Meet what I would haue well, and it destroy: Both heere, and hence, pursue me lasting strife,[4] If once a Widdow, euer I be Wife.[5] [Sidenote: once I be a | be a wife]

Ham. If she should breake it now.[6]

King. 'Tis deepely sworne: Sweet, leaue me heere a while, My spirits grow dull, and faine I would beguile The tedious day with sleepe.

Qu. Sleepe rocke thy Braine, [Sidenote: Sleepes[7]] And neuer come mischance betweene vs twaine,
Exit [Sidenote: Exeunt. ]

Ham. Madam, how like you this Play?

Qu. The Lady protests to much me thinkes, [Sidenote: doth protest]

Ham. Oh but shee'l keepe her word.

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto: -

To desperation turne my trust and hope,[8]
And Anchors[9] cheere in prison be my scope]

[Footnote 1: All that is wanted to make a real enemy of an unreal friend is the seasoning of a requested favour.]

[Footnote 2: 'Our thoughts are ours, but what will come of them we cannot tell.']

[Footnote 3: 'May Day and Night lock from me sport and repose.']

[Footnote 4: 'May strife pursue me in the world and out of it.']

[Footnote 5: In all this, there is nothing to reflect on his mother beyond what everybody knew.]

[Footnote 6: This speech is in the margin of the Quarto. ]

[Footnote 7: Not in Q. ]

[Footnote 8: 'May my trust and hope turn to despair.']

[Footnote 9: an anchoret's.]

[Page 148]

King . Haue you heard the Argument, is there no Offence in't?[1]

Ham . No, no, they do but iest, poyson in iest, no Offence i'th'world.[2]

King . What do you call the Play?

Ham. The Mouse-trap: Marry how? Tropically:[3] This Play is the Image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the Dukes name, his wife
Baptista : you shall see anon: 'tis a knauish peece of worke: But what o'that? Your Maiestie, and [Sidenote: of that?] wee that haue free soules, it touches vs not: let the gall'd iade winch: our withers are vnrung.[4]

Enter Lucianus. [5]

This is one Lucianus nephew to the King.

Ophe . You are a good Chorus, my Lord.
[Sidenote: are as good as a Chorus]

Ham . I could interpret betweene you and your loue: if I could see the Puppets dallying.[6]

Ophe . You are keene my Lord, you are keene.

Ham . It would cost you a groaning, to take off my edge.
[Sidenote: mine]

Ophe . Still better and worse.

Ham . So you mistake Husbands.[7] [Sidenote: mistake your] Begin Murderer. Pox, leaue thy damnable Faces,
[Sidenote: murtherer, leave] and begin. Come, the croaking Rauen doth bellow for Reuenge.[8]

Lucian . Thoughts blacke, hands apt, Drugges fit, and Time agreeing: Confederate season, else, no Creature seeing:[9] [Sidenote: Considerat] Thou mixture ranke, of Midnight Weeds collected, With Hecats Ban, thrice blasted, thrice infected, [Sidenote: invected] Thy naturall Magicke, and dire propertie, On wholsome life, vsurpe immediately. [Sidenote: vsurps]

Powres the poyson in his eares .[10]

Ham . He poysons him i'th Garden for's estate:
[Sidenote: A poysons | for his]

[Footnote 1: -said, perhaps, to Polonius. Is there a lapse here in the king's self-possession? or is this speech only an outcome of its completeness-a pretence of fearing the play may glance at the queen for marrying him?]

[Footnote 2: 'It is but jest; don't be afraid: there is no reality in it'-as one might say to a child seeing a play.]

[Footnote 3: Figuratively: from trope . In the 1st Q. the passage stands thus:

Ham . Mouse-trap: mary how trapically: this play is
The image of a murder done in guyana ,]

[Footnote 4: Here Hamlet endangers himself to force the king to self-betrayal.]

[Footnote 5: In Q. after next line. ]

[Footnote 6: In a puppet-play, if she and her love were the puppets, he could supply the speeches.]

[Footnote 7: Is this a misprint for 'so you must take husbands'-for better and worse,