The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, George MacDonald [ebook reader computer .txt] 📗

[Sidenote: But keepe]

King . We will try it.

Enter Hamlet reading on a Booke. [2]

Qu . But looke where sadly the poore wretch Comes reading.[3]

Pol . Away I do beseech you, both away, He boord[4] him presently. Exit King & Queen [5] Oh giue me leaue.[6] How does my good Lord Hamlet ?

Ham . Well, God-a-mercy.

Pol . Do you know me, my Lord?

[Sidenote: 180] Ham . Excellent, excellent well: y'are a Fish-monger.[7] [Sidenote: Excellent well, you are]

Pol . Not I my Lord.

Ham . Then I would you were so honest a man.

Pol . Honest, my Lord?

Ham . I sir, to be honest as this world goes, is to bee one man pick'd out of two thousand.
[Sidenote: tenne thousand[8]]

Pol . That's very true, my Lord.

Ham .[9] For if the Sun breed Magots in a dead dogge, being a good kissing Carrion-[10] [Sidenote: carrion. Have] Haue you a daughter?[11]

Pol . I haue my Lord.

[Footnote 1: 1st Q .

The Princes walke is here in the galery,
There let Ofelia , walke vntill hee comes:
Your selfe and I will stand close in the study,]

[Footnote 2: Not in Quarto .]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q .-

King . See where hee comes poring vppon a booke.]

[Footnote 4: The same as accost, both meaning originally go to the side of .]

[Footnote 5: A line back in the Quarto .]

[Footnote 6: 'Please you to go away.' 89, 203. Here should come the preceding stage-direction.]

[Footnote 7: Now first the Play shows us Hamlet in his affected madness. He has a great dislike to the selfish, time-serving courtier, who, like his mother, has forsaken the memory of his father-and a great distrust of him as well. The two men are moral antipodes. Each is given to moralizing-but compare their reflections: those of Polonius reveal a lover of himself, those of Hamlet a lover of his kind; Polonius is interested in success; Hamlet in humanity.]

[Footnote 8: So also in 1st Q .]

[Footnote 9: -reading, or pretending to read, the words from the book he carries.]

[Footnote 10: When the passion for emendation takes possession of a man, his opportunities are endless-so many seeming emendations offer themselves which are in themselves not bad, letters and words affording as much play as the keys of a piano. 'Being a god kissing carrion,' is in itself good enough; but Shakspere meant what stands in both Quarto and Folio: the dead dog being a carrion good at kissing . The arbitrary changes of the editors are amazing.]

[Footnote 11: He cannot help his mind constantly turning upon women; and if his thoughts of them are often cruelly false, it is not Hamlet but his mother who is to blame: her conduct has hurled him from the peak of optimism into the bottomless pool of pessimistic doubt, above the foul waters of which he keeps struggling to lift his head.]

[Page 86]

Ham . Let her not walke i'th'Sunne: Conception[1] is a blessing, but not as your daughter may [Sidenote: but as your] conceiue. Friend looke too't.

[Sidenote: 100] Pol .[2] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said [Sidenote: a sayd I] I was a Fishmonger: he is farre gone, farre gone:
[Sidenote: Fishmonger, a is farre gone, and truly] and truly in my youth, I suffred much extreamity and truly for loue: very neere this. Ile speake to him againe.

What do you read my Lord?

Ham . Words, words, words.

Pol . What is the matter, my Lord?

Ham . Betweene who?[3]

Pol . I meane the matter you meane, my
[Sidenote: matter that you reade my] Lord.

Ham . Slanders Sir: for the Satyricall slaue
[Sidenote: satericall rogue sayes] saies here, that old men haue gray Beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thicke Amber, or Plum-Tree Gumme: and that they haue [Sidenote: Amber, and] a plentifull locke of Wit, together with weake
[Sidenote: lacke | with most weake] Hammes. All which Sir, though I most powerfully, and potently beleeue; yet I holde it not Honestie[4] to haue it thus set downe: For you
[Sidenote: for your selfe sir shall grow old as I am:] your selfe Sir, should be old as I am, if like a Crab you could go backward.

Pol .[5] Though this be madnesse, Yet there is Method in't: will you walke Out of the ayre[6] my Lord?

Ham . Into my Graue?

Pol . Indeed that is out o'th'Ayre:
[Sidenote: that's out of the ayre;] How pregnant (sometimes) his Replies are? A happinesse, That often Madnesse hits on, Which Reason and Sanitie could not [Sidenote: sanctity] So prosperously be deliuer'd of.

[Footnote 1: One of the meanings of the word, and more in use then than now, is understanding .]

[Footnote 2: ( aside ).]

[Footnote 3: -pretending to take him to mean by matter , the point of quarrel .]

[Footnote 4: Propriety.]

[Footnote 5: ( aside ).]

[Footnote 6: the draught.]

[Page 88]

[A] I will leaue him, And sodainely contriue the meanes of meeting Betweene him,[1] and my daughter. My Honourable Lord, I will most humbly Take my leaue of you.

Ham . You cannot Sir take from[2] me any thing, that I will more willingly part withall, except my
[Sidenote: will not more | my life, except my] life, my life.[3]
[Sidenote: Enter Guyldersterne, and Rosencrans .]

Polon . Fare you well my Lord.

Ham . These tedious old fooles.

Polon . You goe to seeke my Lord Hamlet ; [Sidenote: the Lord] there hee is.

Enter Rosincran and Guildensterne .[4]

Rosin . God saue you Sir.

Guild . Mine honour'd Lord?

Rosin . My most deare Lord?

Ham . My excellent good friends? How do'st [Sidenote: My extent good] thou Guildensterne ? Oh, Rosincrane ; good Lads:
[Sidenote: A Rosencraus] How doe ye both? [Sidenote: you]

Rosin . As the indifferent Children of the earth.

Guild . Happy, in that we are not ouer-happy: [Sidenote: euer happy on] on Fortunes Cap, we are not the very Button. [Sidenote: Fortunes lap,]

Ham . Nor the Soales of her Shoo?

Rosin . Neither my Lord.

Ham . Then you liue about her waste, or in the middle of her fauour? [Sidenote: fauors.]

Guil . Faith, her priuates, we.

Ham . In the secret parts of Fortune? Oh, most true: she is a Strumpet.[5] What's the newes?
[Sidenote: What newes?]

Rosin . None my Lord; but that the World's [Sidenote: but the] growne honest.

Ham . Then is Doomesday neere: But your

[Footnote A: In the Quarto, the speech ends thus :-I will leaue him and my daughter.[6] My Lord, I will take my leaue of you.]

[Footnote 1: From 'And sodainely' to 'betweene him,' not in Quarto .]

[Footnote 2: It is well here to recall the modes of the word leave : ' Give me leave ,' Polonius says with proper politeness to the king and queen when he wants them to go-that is, 'Grant me your departure '; but he would, going himself, take his leave, his departure, of or
from them-by their permission to go. Hamlet means, 'You cannot take from me anything I will more willingly part with than your leave, or, my permission to you to go.' 85, 203. See the play on the two meanings of the word in Twelfth Night , act ii. sc. 4:

Duke . Give me now leave to leave thee;

though I suspect it ought to be-

Duke . Give me now leave.

Clown . To leave thee!-Now, the melancholy &c.]

[Footnote 3: It is