hence, in spite of conviction, he canvasses anew the question of self-murder, and is deterred from its perpetration only by doubts which assail him on the nature of a future state. Nor is the superinduced indecision of Hamlet's character less apparent in his actions than in his opinions. Hamlet, "the son of a dear father murdered,” was solemnly pledged to revenge himself on the head of him who had "killed his king, whored his mother, popped in between the election and his hopes, and thrown out his angle for his proper life."* But when he should decide, he reasons; when he should act, he rails, "unpacks his heart with words, and falls a cursing like a very drab." Under the impression of notions foolishly and fancifully refined, he allows opportunities most favourable to his purpose to pass; and though "he does not know why yet he lives to say This thing's to do," he procrastinates till his own life falls a sacrifice to his delay.t Shakspeare makes Hamlet's dilatoriness of action proceed from the superinduced indecision of his character, and not from those reasons of * Act V. sc. 2.. + Act II. sc. 2.; Act III. sc. 1. and 3.; Act IV. sc. 4.; and Act V. sc. 2. policy ascribed to the young prince in the history. - -"The desire of revenging my father's death is so engraven in my heart, that, if I die not shortly, I hope to take such and so great vengeance that these countries shall for ever speak thereof. Nevertheless I must stay the time, means, and occasion; lest by making over great haste, I be now the cause of my own sudden ruin and overthrow, and by that means end before I begin to effect my heart's desire: he that hath to do with a wicked, disloyal, cruel, and discourteous man, must use craft and politic inventions, such as a fine wit can best imagine, not to discover his enterprise; for seeing that by force I cannot effect my desire, reason alloweth me by dissimulation, subtlety, and. secret practices to proceed therein." The conduct of Hamlet is, in a variety of instances, inconsistent with the mild and affectionate nature displayed by him on other occasions; instances which fall under the division of Hamlet's character already designated as its artificial features. Shakspeare has not marked, by a very broad distinction, the assumed from the natural disposition of Hamlet; and hence arises an obscurity which reference to the black-letter history will greatly contribute to remove. It is there, for instance, explained that Hamlet was induced to put "an antick disposition on," as a protection against the danger which he justly apprehended from his uncle, and as a cloak for the concealment of his own meditated designs. "It was not without cause, and just occasion, that my gestures, countenances, and words seem to proceed from a madman, and that I desire to have all men esteem me wholly deprived of sense and reasonable understanding; because I am well assured, that he that hath made no conscience to kill his own brother (accustomed to murthers, and allured with desire of government without control in his treasons,) will not spare to save himself with the like cruelty, in the blood and flesh of the loins of his brother, by him massacred; and therefore it is better for me to feign madness, than to use my right senses as nature hath bestowed them on me: the bright shining clearness thereof I am forced to hide under this shadow of dissimulation, as the sun doth her beams under some great cloud, when the weather in summer-time overcasteth. The face of a madman serveth to cover my gallant countenance, and the gestures of a fool are fit for me; to the end that, guiding myself wisely therein, I may preserve my life for the Danes and the memory of my late deceased father." It is, perhaps, inferible from the play that such were the motives which induced Hamlet to shrowd his intellectual brightness under the garb of madness; but the fact is by no means so clear as to render unacceptable the illustration afforded by the black-letter history. It admits not of a doubt that Hamlet's attachment to Ophelia is ardent and sincere; but it is left a problem why he treats a woman of honour and delicacy, whom he loves, with a severity and violence from which her sex should have protected even an unworthy object. A satisfactory solution of the difficulty is derived from the history; whence it is learnt, what is not to be learnt from the play, that Hamlet was aware that Ophelia was purposely thrown in his way; that spies were about them; and that it was necessary, for the preservation of his life, to assume a conduct which he thought could be attributed to madness only. Shakspeare was certainly influenced by the novel in his delineation of the artificial part of Hamlet's character, and it is curious to notice his improvements. It was necessary, indeed, when the dramatist had conceived the character of a prince who could be called “The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword; The expectancy and rose of the fair state; The glass of fashion and the mould of form; to elevate him, even in madness, above the level of idiocy - rolling on the ground and wallowing in filth, till contamination became personal disguise. How different, but yet not entirely dissimilar, is the poet's striking picture of Hamlet's wild and disordered air "his doublet all unbraced; No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd, As if he had been loosed out of hell To speak of horrors." ↑ : There is little accordance between the debased and disgusting exterior of the Danish prince in the narrative, and the depth and acuteness of his understanding at the first view, though irrational and irrelavent, beneath his outward guise of folly a pregnant meaning is generally discoverable in his conversation; which, in fact, leaves an impression that the utterer is much more justly chargeable with craft than mental imbecility. Between such enigmatical colloquy, and the sublime and enlarged, but wild and irregular + Act II. sc. 1. * Act III. sc. 1. |
