Hamlet

“ There is, of course, a great deal more in Hamlet; there is its high poetry, its mournful dwelling upon deep mysteries, its supernatural terrors, its worldly wisdom, its penetrating insight; but these are all accessories to the central thought; the conception is absolutely firm throughout. The hunted soul of Hamlet, after a pleasant and easy drifting upon the stream of happy events, finds a sombre curtain suddenly twitched aside, and is confronted with a tragedy so dark, a choice so desperate, that the reeling brain staggers, and can hardly keep its hold upon the events and habits of life. ”

“ If Hamlet give the first or second hit, Or quit in answer of the third exchange, Let all the battlements their ordnance fire; The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath, And in the cup an union shall he throw Richer than that which four successive kings In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups; And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, The trumpet to the cannoneer without, The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth, ‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin. And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.
HAMLET. Come on, sir.
LAERTES. Come, my lord. ”

“ Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.
Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more!
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
Ham. Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty!
Queen. O, speak to me no more!
These words like daggers enter in mine ears.
No more, sweet Hamlet!
Ham. A murtherer and a villain!
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings ”

“ Before Hamlet fell into the melancholy way which has been related, he had dearly loved a fair maid called Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, the king's chief counsellor in affairs of state. He had sent her letters and rings, and made many tenders of his affection to her, and importuned her with love in honourable fashion: and she had given belief to his vows and importunities. ”

“ I think that it is impossible to conceive Hamlet more truly, or execute it more exquisitely, than he does. The refinement, the tenderness, the grace, dignity, and princely courtesy with which he invests it from beginning to end, are most lovely; and some of the slighter passages, which, like fine tints to the incapable eyes of blindness, must always pass unnoticed, and, of course, utterly uncomprehended, by the discriminating public, enchanted me. ”

“ We believe with eye, and ear, and imagination, and heart; and are as fain of our wildly-compounded—real-unreal—dream, as the birds are of the dawning. Hamlet, born and bred in the court of our own Elizabeth, and abruptly called up to Town, on the point of graduating with honours at Oxford, is shown to our credulous apprehension rooted upon a soil and in a century when and where there were no human shapes to be met with but bloodthirsty Vikings and invulnerable Berserkers. ”

“ If you wished to make a bag of old playgoers, or meditated a sort of Bartholomew's Eve, a revival of Hamlet would, of course, be the occasion you would select for your purpose: for the old playgoer, so to speak, collects Hamlets. At a first night of Hamlet every sixth stall-holder is a Dr. Doran up to date, his mind a portfolio of old prints.
That is why a perambulation of the stalls is as perilous as to pick one's way through hot ploughshares. You can hardly hope always to pass through unscathed. ”

“ It runs smoothly in the calmly-uttered and thoughtful sentences of Hamlet; it bubbles and laughs in the saucy badinage of Beatrice and Celia; seeks the shadow in the melancholy of Jacques; enters the realm of the pun in the wordy self-assertion of Polonius, and descends to the comic and sometimes the vulgar in Falstaff and Dogberry.
In the character of Hamlet we find a keen sense of humor, overcast by the ever-present suspicion of his father’s foul end, and a vague distrust of those around him. A certain sarcasm lurks in the depths, and imparts an incisiveness to every well-turned sentence. ”

“ Hamlet was still snoring peacefully. He crept out, then remembered that to do this properly one must take off one’s boots and carry them in one’s hand. Too late now for that. Downstairs he went; at every creak he paused; the house was like a closed box around him. From some room far away came loud, impatient snores. Once he stumbled and nearly fell; he stayed there, his hands on the banisters, a dead man save for the beating of his heart.
His hand was on the pantry window, he had pushed back the catch, climbed through, and in another moment was in the garden. ”

“ Well, the thought of Hamlet in a short-tailed coat and light pants almost made me sick, and when Mr. Booth came upon the stage, looking like an Episcopal minister, with a Knight Templar's cheese knife that he borrowed, I couldn't think of anything but Hamlet. I forgot all about his clothes, and I believe if he had only had on a pair of sailor's pants and a red flannel fireman's shirt that the people would only have seen Hamlet. I tell you he is the greatest actor that ever lived. The people sat perfectly still, and seemed wrapped up in Booth. ”

“ This put Hamlet upon thinking, if that player could so work himself up to passion by a mere fictitious speech, to weep for one that he had never seen, for Hecuba, that had been dead so many hundred years, how dull was he, who having a real motive and cue for passion, a real king and a dear father murdered, was yet so little moved, that his revenge all this while had seemed to have slept in dull and muddy forgetfulness! ”

“ Bring in my lord.
Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern.
KING. Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?
HAMLET. At supper.
KING. At supper? Where?
HAMLET. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service,—two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end.
KING. Alas, alas!
HAMLET. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. ”

“ This whole speech of Hamlet is profoundly sane—looking therefore altogether insane to the shallow mind, on which the impression of its insanity is deepened by its coming from him so freely. The common nature disappointed rails at humanity; Hamlet, his earthly ideal destroyed, would tear his individual human self to pieces.]
[Footnote 7: This we may suppose uttered with an expression as startling to Ophelia as impenetrable.] ”

“ Hamlet is a history of mind—a tragedy of thought. It contains the deepest philosophy, and most profound wisdom; yet speaks the language of the heart, touching the secret spring of every sense and feeling. Here we have no ideal exaltation of character, but life with its blended faults ands,—a gentle nature unstrung by passing events, and thus rendered "out of tune and harsh."
The original story of Hamlet is to be found in the Latin pages of the Danish historian, Saxo Grammaticus, who died in the year 1208. ”

“ Where is he gone?
QUEEN.
To draw apart the body he hath kill’d,
O’er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done.
KING.
O Gertrude, come away!
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch
But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed
We must with all our majesty and skill
Both countenance and excuse.—Ho, Guildenstern!
Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him. ”

“ Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,
We heard it all. My lord, do as you please,
But if you hold it fit, after the play,
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief, let her be round with him,
And I’ll be plac’d, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.
KING.
It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. A hall in the Castle. Enter Hamlet and certain Players. ”

“ If we to-day can feel with Hamlet, it is certainly no wonder that the play was immensely popular in its own day. It is easy to understand its charm for the cultivated youth of the period; but it would be surprising, if we did not realise the alertness of the Renaissance and its wonderful receptivity for the highest culture, to find that Hamlet was in as great favour with the lower ranks of society as with the higher. ”

“ In the French play, therefore, Hamlet is placed in one of the most dreadful situations in which the genius of poetry can imagine a human being: Haunted by a spirit, which assumes such mastery over his mind, that he cannot dispel the fearful impression it has made, or disregard the communication it so often repeats, while his attachment to his mother, in whom he reveres the parent he has lost, makes him question the truth of crimes which are thus laid to her charge, and causes him to look upon this terrific spectre as the punishment of unknown crime, and the visitation of an offended Deity. ”

“ From this time Hamlet affected a certain wildness and strangeness in his apparel, his speech, and behaviour, and did so excellently counterfeit the madman, that the king and queen were both deceived, and not thinking his grief for his father's death a sufficient cause to produce such a distemper, for they knew not of the appearance of the ghost, they concluded that his malady was love, and they thought they had found out the object. ”

“ That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? What should we do?
Ghost beckons Hamlet.
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.
Mar. Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground.
But do not go with it!
Hor. No, by no means!
Ham. It will not speak. Then will I follow it.
Hor. Do not, my lord! ”

“ I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?
GUILDENSTERN. My lord, I cannot.
HAMLET. I pray you.
GUILDENSTERN. Believe me, I cannot.
HAMLET. I do beseech you.
GUILDENSTERN. I know no touch of it, my lord.
HAMLET. ’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.
GUILDENSTERN. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the skill.
HAMLET. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; ”

“ A genial cynic, a pleasant pessimist, an earnest trifler, he was made up of contradictions. A fellow of infinite jest--and infinite sadness. His prototypes were Hamlet or the Melancholy Jacques. Among the delightful essays he has left us in that charming little book, The Day's Burden, is one entitled "A new way of misunderstanding Hamlet." He was himself a veritable Hamlet in this twentieth century Ireland. One may ask, did he quite understand himself? Master of paradox, enunciator of enigma, he was a paradox and an enigma in, and to, himself. ”

“ What is the matter, my lord?
HAMLET. Between who?
POLONIUS. I mean the matter that you read, my lord.
HAMLET. Slanders, sir. For the satirical slave says here that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down. For you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.
POLONIUS. [Aside.] ”

“ But when he dragged for the body, it was not the king, but Polonius, the old officious counsellor, that had planted himself as a spy behind the hangings. 'Oh me!' exclaimed the queen, 'what a rash and bloody deed have you done!' 'A bloody deed, mother,' replied Hamlet, 'but not so bad as yours, who killed a king, and married his brother.' Hamlet had gone too far to leave off here. He was now in the humour to speak plainly to his mother, and he pursued it. ”

“ As we will not care to lay Hamlet down till Fortinbras is taking Hamlet, with regal honors, from the scene, so we cling to Job till we see light break through the clouds, and the storm vanish, and the thunder cease. ”

“ Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.
Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honoured in the breach than the observance.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I 'll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me! ”

“ The character in history and fiction which most intrigues him is Hamlet, that gentle soul unfit for life. He has spent years studying the shy Dane. He himself is a Hamlet who has taken up arms against a sea of troubles. ”