Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth

And, finally, even if he were referring simply to his behaviour at the grave, his excuse, besides falling in with his whole plan of feigning insanity, would be as near the truth as any he could devise. For we are not to take the account he gives to Horatio, that he was put in a passion by the bravery of Laertes' grief, as the whole truth. His raving over the grave is not _mere_ acting. On the contrary, that passage is the best card that the believers in Hamlet's madness have to play. He is really almost beside himself with grief as well as anger, half-maddened by the impossibility of explaining to Laertes how he has come to do what he has done, full of wild rage and then of sick despair at this wretched world which drives him to such deeds and such misery. It is the same rage and despair that mingle with other feelings in his outbreak to Ophelia in the Nunnery-scene. But of all this, even if he were clearly conscious of it, he cannot speak to Horatio; for his love to Ophelia is a subject on which he has never opened his lips to his friend. If we realise the situation, then, we shall, I think, repress the wish that Hamlet had 'made some other defence' than that of madness. We shall feel only tragic sympathy. * * * * * As I have referred to Hamlet's apology, I will add a remark on it from a different point of view. It forms another refutation of the theory that Hamlet has delayed his vengeance till he could publicly convict the King, and that he has come back to Denmark because now, with the evidence of the commission in his pocket, he can safely accuse him. If that were so, what better opportunity could he possibly find than this occasion, where he has to express his sorrow to Laertes for the grievous wrongs which he has unintentionally inflicted on him? NOTE H. THE EXCHANGE OF RAPIERS. I am not going to discuss the question how this exchange ought to be managed. I wish merely to point out that the stage-direction fails to show the sequence of speeches and events. The passage is as follows (Globe text): _Ham._ Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally; I pray you, pass with your best violence; I am afeard you make a wanton of me. _Laer._ Say you so? come on. [_They play._ _Osr._ Nothing, neither way. _Laer._ Have at you now! [_Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes._[264] _King._ Part them; they are incensed. _Ham._ Nay, come, again. _The Queen falls._[265] _Osr._ Look to the Queen there, ho! _Hor._ They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord? _Osr._ How is't, Laertes? The words 'and Hamlet wounds Laertes' in Rowe's stage-direction destroy the point of the words given to the King in the text. If Laertes is already wounded, why should the King care whether the fencers are parted or not? What makes him cry out is that, while he sees his purpose effected as regards Hamlet, he also sees Laertes in danger through the exchange of foils in the scuffle. Now it is not to be supposed that Laertes is particularly dear to him; but he sees instantaneously that, if Laertes escapes the poisoned foil, he will certainly hold his tongue about the plot against Hamlet, while, if he is wounded, he may confess the truth; for it is no doubt quite evident to the King that Laertes has fenced tamely because his conscience is greatly troubled by the treachery he is about to practise. The King therefore, as soon as he sees the exchange of foils, cries out, 'Part them; they are incensed.' But Hamlet's blood is up. 'Nay, come, again,' he calls to Laertes, who cannot refuse to play, and _now_ is wounded by Hamlet. At the very same moment the Queen falls to the ground; and ruin rushes on the King from the right hand and the left. The passage, therefore, should be printed thus: _Laer._ Have at you now! [_Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in scuffling, they change rapiers._ _King._ Part them; they are incensed. _Ham._ Nay, come, again. [_They play, and Hamlet wounds Laertes. The Queen falls._ FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 264: So Rowe. The direction in Q1 is negligible, the text being different. Q2 etc. have nothing, Ff. simply 'In scuffling they change rapiers.'] [Footnote 265: Capell. The Quartos and Folios have no directions.] NOTE I. THE DURATION OF THE ACTION IN _OTHELLO_. The quite unusual difficulties regarding this subject have led to much discussion, a synopsis of which may be found in Furness's Variorum edition, pp. 358-72. Without detailing the facts I will briefly set out the main difficulty, which is that, according to one set of indications (which I will call A), Desdemona was murdered within a day or two of her arrival in Cyprus, while, according to another set (which I will call B), some time elapsed between her arrival and the catastrophe. Let us take A first, and run through the play. (A) Act I. opens on the night of Othello's marriage. On that night he is despatched to Cyprus, leaving Desdemona to follow him. In Act II. Sc. i., there arrive at Cyprus, first, in one ship, Cassio; then, in another, Desdemona, Iago, and Emilia; then, in another, Othello (Othello, Cassio, and Desdemona being in three different ships, it does not matter, for our purpose, how long the voyage lasted). On the night following these arrivals in Cyprus the marriage is consummated (II. iii. 9), Cassio is cashiered, and, on Iago's advice, he resolves to ask Desdemona's intercession 'betimes in the morning' (II. iii. 335). In Act III. Sc. iii. (the Temptation scene), he does so: Desdemona does intercede: Iago begins to poison Othello's mind: the handkerchief is lost, found by Emilia, and given to Iago: he determines to leave it in Cassio's room, and, renewing his attack on Othello, asserts that he has seen the handkerchief in Cassio's hand: Othello bids him kill Cassio within three days, and resolves to kill Desdemona himself. All this occurs in one unbroken scene, and evidently on the day after the arrival in Cyprus (see III. i. 33). In the scene (iv.) following the Temptation scene Desdemona sends to bid Cassio come, as she has interceded for him: Othello enters, tests her about the handkerchief, and departs in anger: Cassio, arriving, is told of the change in Othello, and, being left _solus_, is accosted by Bianca, whom he requests to copy the work on the handkerchief which he has just found in his room (ll. 188 f.). All this is naturally taken to happen in the later part of the day on which the events of III. i.-iii. took place, _i.e._ the day after the arrival in Cyprus: but I shall return to this point. In IV. i. Iago tells Othello that Cassio has confessed, and, placing Othello where he can watch, he proceeds on Cassio's entrance to rally him about Bianca; and Othello, not being near enough to hear what is said, believes that Cassio is laughing at his conquest of Desdemona. Cassio here says that Bianca haunts him and 'was here _even now_'; and Bianca herself, coming in, reproaches him about the handkerchief 'you gave me _even now_.' There is therefore no appreciable time between III. iv. and IV. i. In this same scene Bianca bids Cassio come to supper _to-night_; and Lodovico, arriving, is asked to sup with Othello _to-night_. In IV. ii. Iago persuades Roderigo to kill Cassio _that night_ as he comes from Bianca's. In IV. iii. Lodovico, after supper, takes his leave, and Othello bids Desdemona go to bed on the instant and dismiss her attendant. In Act V., _that night_, the attempted assassination of Cassio, and the murder of Desdemona, take place. From all this, then, it seems clear that the time between the arrival in Cyprus and the catastrophe is certainly not more than a few days, and most probably only about a day and a half: or, to put it otherwise, that most probably Othello kills his wife about twenty-four hours after the consummation of their marriage! The only _possible_ place, it will be seen, where time can elapse is between III. iii. and III. iv. And here Mr. Fleay would imagine a gap of at least a week. The reader will find that this supposition involves the following results, (_a_) Desdemona has allowed at least a week to elapse without telling Cassio that she has interceded for him. (_b_) Othello, after being convinced of her guilt, after resolving to kill her, and after ordering Iago to kill Cassio within three days, has allowed at least a week to elapse without even questioning her about the handkerchief, and has so behaved during all this time that she is totally unconscious of any change in his feelings. (_c_) Desdemona, who reserves the handkerchief evermore about her to kiss and talk to (III. iii. 295), has lost it for at least a week before she is conscious of the loss. (_d_) Iago has waited at least a week to leave the handkerchief in Cassio's chamber; for Cassio has evidently only just found it, and wants the work on it copied before the owner makes inquiries for it. These are all gross absurdities. It is certain that only a short time, most probable that not even a night, elapses between III. iii. and III. iv. (B) Now this idea that Othello killed his wife, probably within twenty-four hours, certainly within a few days, of the consummation of his marriage, contradicts the impression produced by the play on all uncritical readers and spectators. It is also in flat contradiction with a large number of time-indications in the play itself. It is needless to mention more than a few. (_a_) Bianca complains that Cassio has kept away from her for a week (III. iv. 173). Cassio and the rest have therefore been more than a week in Cyprus, and, we should naturally infer, considerably more. (_b_) The ground on which Iago builds throughout is the probability of Desdemona's having got tired of the Moor; she is accused of having repeatedly committed adultery with Cassio (_e.g._ V. ii. 210); these facts and a great many others, such as Othello's language in III. iii. 338 ff., are utterly absurd on the supposition that he murders his wife within a day or two of the night when he consummated his marriage. (_c_) Iago's account of Cassio's dream implies (and indeed states) that he had been sleeping with Cassio 'lately,' _i.e._ after arriving at Cyprus: yet, according to A, he had only spent one night in Cyprus, and we are expressly told that Cassio never went to bed on that night. Iago doubtless was a liar, but Othello was not an absolute idiot. * * * * * Thus (1) one set of time-indications clearly shows that Othello murdered his wife within a few days, probably a day and a half, of his arrival in Cyprus and the consummation of his marriage; (2) another set of time-indications implies quite as clearly that some little time must have elapsed, probably a few weeks; and this last is certainly the impression of a reader who has not closely examined the play. It is impossible to escape this result. The suggestion that the imputed intrigue of Cassio and Desdemona took place at Venice before the marriage, not at Cyprus after it, is quite futile. There is no positive evidence whatever for it; if the reader will merely refer to the difficulties mentioned under B above, he will see that it leaves almost all of them absolutely untouched; and Iago's accusation is uniformly one of adultery. How then is this extraordinary contradiction to be explained? It can hardly be one of the casual inconsistencies, due to forgetfulness, which