Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
to entrap him, instead of being engaged in a business which perhaps to
the bulk of the audience then, as now, seemed to have a 'relish of
salvation in't.'
We notice in Hamlet, at the opening of this interview, something of the
excited levity which followed the _denouement_ of the play-scene. The
death of Polonius sobers him; and in the remainder of the interview he
shows, together with some traces of his morbid state, the peculiar
beauty and nobility of his nature. His chief desire is not by any means
to ensure his mother's silent acquiescence in his design of revenge; it
is to save her soul. And while the rough work of vengeance is repugnant
to him, he is at home in this higher work. Here that fatal feeling, 'it
is no matter,' never shows itself. No father-confessor could be more
selflessly set upon his end of redeeming a fellow-creature from
degradation, more stern or pitiless in denouncing the sin, or more eager
to welcome the first token of repentance. There is something infinitely
beautiful in that sudden sunshine of faith and love which breaks out
when, at the Queen's surrender,
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain,
he answers,
O throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
The truth is that, though Hamlet hates his uncle and acknowledges the
duty of vengeance, his whole heart is never in this feeling or this
task; but his whole heart is in his horror at his mother's fall and in
his longing to raise her. The former of these feelings was the
inspiration of his first soliloquy; it combines with the second to form
the inspiration of his eloquence here. And Shakespeare never wrote more
eloquently than here.
I have already alluded to the significance of the reappearance of the
Ghost in this scene; but why does Shakespeare choose for the particular
moment of its reappearance the middle of a speech in which Hamlet is
raving against his uncle? There seems to be more than one reason. In the
first place, Hamlet has already attained his object of stirring shame
and contrition in his mother's breast, and is now yielding to the old
temptation of unpacking his heart with words, and exhausting in useless
emotion the force which should be stored up in his will. And, next, in
doing this he is agonising his mother to no purpose, and in despite of
her piteous and repeated appeals for mercy. But the Ghost, when it gave
him his charge, had expressly warned him to spare her; and here again
the dead husband shows the same tender regard for his weak unfaithful
wife. The object of his return is to repeat his charge:
Do not forget: this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose;
but, having uttered this reminder, he immediately bids the son to help
the mother and 'step between her and her fighting soul.'
And, whether intentionally or not, another purpose is served by
Shakespeare's choice of this particular moment. It is a moment when the
state of Hamlet's mind is such that we cannot suppose the Ghost to be
meant for an hallucination; and it is of great importance here that the
spectator or reader should not suppose any such thing. He is further
guarded by the fact that the Ghost proves, so to speak, his identity by
showing the same traits as were visible on his first appearance--the
same insistence on the duty of remembering, and the same concern for the
Queen. And the result is that we construe the Ghost's interpretation of
Hamlet's delay ('almost blunted purpose') as the truth, the dramatist's
own interpretation. Let me add that probably no one in Shakespeare's
audience had any doubt of his meaning here. The idea of later critics
and readers that the Ghost is an hallucination is due partly to failure
to follow the indications just noticed, but partly also to two mistakes,
the substitution of our present intellectual atmosphere for the
Elizabethan, and the notion that, because the Queen does not see and
hear the Ghost, it is meant to be unreal. But a ghost, in Shakespeare's
day, was able for any sufficient reason to confine its manifestation to
a single person in a company; and here the sufficient reason, that of
sparing the Queen, is obvious.[61]
At the close of this scene it appears that Hamlet has somehow learned of
the King's design of sending him to England in charge of his two
'school-fellows.' He has no doubt that this design covers some
villainous plot against himself, but neither does he doubt that he will
succeed in defeating it; and, as we saw, he looks forward with pleasure
to this conflict of wits. The idea of refusing to go appears not to
occur to him. Perhaps (for here we are left to conjecture) he feels that
he could not refuse unless at the same time he openly accused the King
of his father's murder (a course which he seems at no time to
contemplate); for by the slaughter of Polonius he has supplied his enemy
with the best possible excuse for getting him out of the country.
Besides, he has so effectually warned this enemy that, after the death
of Polonius is discovered, he is kept under guard (IV. iii. 14). He
consents, then, to go. But on his way to the shore he meets the army of
Fortinbras on its march to Poland; and the sight of these men going
cheerfully to risk death 'for an egg-shell,' and 'making mouths at the
invisible event,' strikes him with shame as he remembers how he, with so
much greater cause for action, 'lets all sleep;' and he breaks out into
the soliloquy, 'How all occasions do inform against me!'
This great speech, in itself not inferior to the famous 'To be or not to
be,' is absent not only from the First Quarto but from the Folio. It is
therefore probable that, at any rate by the time when the Folio appeared
(1623), it had become customary to omit it in theatrical representation;
and this is still the custom. But, while no doubt it is dramatically the
least indispensable of the soliloquies, it has a direct dramatic value,
and a great value for the interpretation of Hamlet's character. It shows
that Hamlet, though he is leaving Denmark, has not relinquished the idea
of obeying the Ghost. It exhibits very strikingly his inability to
understand why he has delayed so long. It contains that assertion which
so many critics forget, that he has 'cause and will and strength and
means to do it.' On the other hand--and this was perhaps the principal
purpose of the speech--it convinces us that he has learnt little or
nothing from his delay, or from his failure to seize the opportunity
presented to him after the play-scene. For, we find, both the motive and
the gist of the speech are precisely the same as those of the soliloquy
at the end of the Second Act ('O what a rogue'). There too he was
stirred to shame when he saw a passionate emotion awakened by a cause
which, compared with his, was a mere egg-shell. There too he stood
bewildered at the sight of his own dulness, and was almost ready to
believe--what was justly incredible to him--that it was the mask of mere
cowardice. There too he determined to delay no longer: if the King
should but blench, he knew his course. Yet this determination led to
nothing then; and why, we ask ourselves in despair, should the bloody
thoughts he now resolves to cherish ever pass beyond the realm of
thought?
Between this scene (IV. iv.) and the remainder of the play we must again
suppose an interval, though not a very long one. When the action
recommences, the death of Polonius has led to the insanity of Ophelia
and the secret return of Laertes from France. The young man comes back
breathing slaughter. For the King, afraid to put Hamlet on his trial (a
course likely to raise the question of his own behaviour at the play,
and perhaps to provoke an open accusation),[62] has attempted to hush up
the circumstances of Polonius's death, and has given him a hurried and
inglorious burial. The fury of Laertes, therefore, is directed in the
first instance against the King: and the ease with which he raises the
people, like the King's fear of a judicial enquiry, shows us how purely
internal were the obstacles which the hero had to overcome. This
impression is intensified by the broad contrast between Hamlet and
Laertes, who rushes headlong to his revenge, and is determined to have
it though allegiance, conscience, grace and damnation stand in his way
(IV. v. 130). But the King, though he has been hard put to it, is now in
his element and feels safe. Knowing that he will very soon hear of
Hamlet's execution in England, he tells Laertes that his father died by
Hamlet's hand, and expresses his willingness to let the friends of
Laertes judge whether he himself has any responsibility for the deed.
And when, to his astonishment and dismay, news comes that Hamlet has
returned to Denmark, he acts with admirable promptitude and address,
turns Laertes round his finger, and arranges with him for the murder of
their common enemy. If there were any risk of the young man's resolution
faltering, it is removed by the death of Ophelia. And now the King has
but one anxiety,--to prevent the young men from meeting before the
fencing-match. For who can tell what Hamlet might say in his defence, or
how enchanting his tongue might prove?[63]
Hamlet's return to Denmark is due partly to his own action, partly to
accident. On the voyage he secretly possesses himself of the royal
commission, and substitutes for it another, which he himself writes and
seals, and in which the King of England is ordered to put to death, not
Hamlet, but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Then the ship is attacked by a
pirate, which, apparently, finds its intended prize too strong for it,
and makes off. But as Hamlet 'in the grapple,' eager for fighting, has
boarded the assailant, he is carried off in it, and by promises induces
the pirates to put him ashore in Denmark.
In what spirit does he return? Unquestionably, I think, we can observe a
certain change, though it is not great. First, we notice here and there
what seems to be a consciousness of power, due probably to his success
in counter-mining Claudius and blowing the courtiers to the moon, and to
his vigorous action in the sea-fight. But I doubt if this sense of power
is more marked than it was in the scenes following the success of the
'Murder of Gonzago.' Secondly, we nowhere find any direct expression of
that weariness of life and that longing for death which were so marked
in the first soliloquy and in the speech 'To be or not to be.' This may
be a mere accident, and it must be remembered that in the Fifth Act we
have no soliloquy. But in the earlier Acts the feelings referred to do
not appear _merely_ in soliloquy, and I incline to think that
Shakespeare means to show in the Hamlet of the Fifth Act a slight
thinning of the dark cloud of melancholy, and means us to feel it tragic
that this change comes too late. And, in the third place, there is a
trait about which doubt is impossible,--a sense in Hamlet that he is in
the hands of Providence. This had, indeed, already shown itself at the
death of Polonius,[64] and perhaps at Hamlet's farewell to the King,[65]
but the idea seems now to be constantly present in his mind. 'There's a
divinity that shapes our ends,' he declares to Horatio in speaking of
the fighting in his heart that would not let him sleep, and of his
rashness in groping his way to the courtiers to find their commission.
How was he able, Horatio asks, to seal the substituted commission?
Why, even in that was heaven ordinant,
Hamlet answers; he had his father's signet in his purse. And though he
has a presentiment of evil about the fencing-match he refuses to yield
to it: 'we defy augury: there is special providence in the fall of a
sparrow ... the readiness is all.'
Though these passages strike us more when put together thus than when