390

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

Mine and my father's death come not upon thee;
Nor thine on me!

[Dies.

Ham. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio.-Wretched queen, adieu !——
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time, (as this fell sergeant,' death,
Is strict in his arrest,) O, I could tell you,-
But let it be.-Horatio, I am dead;
Thou liv'st; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.

Hor.

Never believe it;
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane,
Here's yet some liquor left.

Ham.
As thou'rt a man,
Give me the cup; let go; by Heaven, I'll have it.-
O God!-Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.-
[March afar off, and shot within.
What warlike noise is this?

Os Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from
Poland,

To the ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley.

2

Ham.
O, I die, Horatio ;
The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit.
I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more or less,
Which have solicited,3-The rest is silence.

[Dies.

Hor. Now cracks a noble heart.-Good night, sweet

prince;

1 A sergeant was a bailiff or sheriff's officer.

2 To overcrow is to overcome, to subdue.

3 "The occurrents which have solicited"—the occurrences or incidents which have incited. The sentence is left unfinished.

[ACT V

SC. II.]

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Why does the drum come hither?

2

The sight is dismal ;
And our affairs from England come too late.
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him, his commandment is fulfilled,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have our thanks?

Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and
others.

391

[March within.

Fort. Where is this sight?
Hor.
What is it you would see?
If aught of woe, or wonder, cease your search.
Fort. This quarry cries on havoc!-O proud death!
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes, at a shot,
So bloodily hast struck?

1 Amb.

Hor.

Not from his mouth,

Had it the ability of life to thank you;
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived; give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;

And let me speak, to the yet unknowing world,
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts; 3

4

Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning, and forced cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

1 "This quarry cries on havoc ! " To cry on was to exclaim against. Quarry was the term used for a heap of slaughtered game. See Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 3.

2 It has been already observed that jump and just, or exactly, are synonymous. Vide note on Act i. Sc. 1.

3 Of sanguinary and unnatural acts, to which the perpetrator was instigated by concupiscence or "carnal stings." The allusion is to the murder of old Hamlet by his brother.

4 i. e. instigatell, produced. Instead of "forced cause," the quartos read, "for no cause."

392

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

Fallen on the inventors' heads. All this can I

Truly deliver.
Fort.
Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow, I embrace
embrace my fortune
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

1

Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
But let this same be presently performed,
Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance
On plots and errors happen.

Fort.

Speak loudly for him.

Take up the bodies.-Such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,

To have proved most royally; and, for his passage,

The soldier's music, and the rites of war,

[ACT V

i. e. some rights which are remembered in this kingdom.

[A dead march. [Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies; after which a peal of ordnance is shot off.

THE following scene in the first quarto, 1603, differs so materially from the revised play, that it has been thought it would not be unacceptable to the reader :

Ch

Enter HORATIO and the Queen.

Hor. Madam, your son is safe arrived in Denmarke;
This letter I even now received of him,
Whereas he writes how he escaped the danger,
And subtle treason that the king had plotted,
Being crossed by the contention of the winds,
He found the packet sent to the king of England,
Wherein he saw himself betrayed to death,
As at his next conversion with your grace
He will relate the circumstance at full.

Hor. Madam, never make doubt of that:
I think by this the news be come to court
He is arrived:

Queen. Then I perceive there's treason in his looks,
That semed to sugar o'er his villanies;
But I will sooth and p.case him for a time,
For murderous minds are always jealous:
But know not you, Horatio, where he is?

Hor. Yes, madam, and he hath appointed me
To meet him on the east side of the city
To-morrow morning.

VOL. VII.

Queen. O fail not, good Horatio, and withal commend me

A mother's care to him; bid him a while
Be wary of his presence, lest that he

Fail in that he goes about.

Observe the king, and you shall quickly find,
Hamlet being here, things fell not to his mind.

Queen. But what became of Gilderstone and Rossencraft ?

Hor. He being set ashore, they went for England,

And in the packet there writ down that doom
To be performed on them 'pointed for him:
And by great chance he had his father's seal,
So all was done without discovery.

Queen. Thanks be to Heaven for blessing of the prince,
Horatio, once again I take my leave,
With thousand mother's blessings to my son.
Hor. Madam, adieu!

50

394

Ir the dramas of Shakspeare were to be characterized, each by the particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety. The incidents are so numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long tale. The scenes are interchangeably diversified with merriment and solemnitywith merriment that includes judicious and instructive observations, and solemnity not strained by poetical violence above the natural sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of Hamlet causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness; and every personage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that, in the first act, chills the blood with horror, to the fop, in the last, that exposes affectation to just contempt.

The conduct is, perhaps, not wholly se against objections. The action is indeed for the most part in continual progression; but there are some scenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause; for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity. He plays the madman most when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty.

Hamlet is, through the whole piece, rather an instrument than an agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the king, he makes no attempt to punish him; and his death is at last effected by an incident which Hamlet had no part in producing.

The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of weapons is rather an expedient of necessity, than a stroke of art. A scheme might easily be formed to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl.

The Poet is accused of having shown little regard to poetical justice, and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability. The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; the revenge which he demands is not obtained but by the death of him that was required to take it; and the gratification which would arise from the destruction of a usurper and a murderer, is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the harmless, and the pious.

JOHNSON