It shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines And blow them to the moon. The decision was quick, the performance prompt. Here is Hamlet's own description of what took place on board ship: Ham. Hor. Up from my cabin, Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,- Larded with many several sorts of reasons, Importing Denmark's health and England's too, That, on the supervise, no leisure bated No, not to stay the grinding of an axe. My head should be struck off. Is't possible? Ham. Here's the commission: read it at more leisure. Ham. Being thus be-netted round with villainies.- An earnest conjuration from the King, As England was his faithful tributary, That on the view and knowing of these contents, He should the bearers put to sudden death, Not shriving time allowed. It would require Sam Weller's "pair o' patent double million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power" to detect any sluggish judgment, dilatoriness, tardiness, or irresolution in this action. Again, Hamlet's ruse to get aboard the pirates' ship and so achieve "a sudden and strange return to Denmark" shows perception as alert as the execution is prompt; and it is followed by instant determination to see the King, as his letter shows; "I am set naked on your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes." The remainder of the play shows the same promptitude; the scene at the graveside and Hamlet's immediate acceptance of the challenge to fence, notwithstanding advice and opportunity to delay. Here then is a prince whose every action discovers quick judgment and determination followed by prompt and resolute performance. Is there not some explanation of the one instance of alleged tardiness that has caused the character of Hamlet to be a matter of so much controversy? I think there is. It seems to me that there has ever been a too-ready assumption that the form the revenge was to take was the murder of the King; murder for murder, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. I do not admit this, or even that the revenge was to be achieved by Hamlet's own hands. There is nothing in the Ghost's injunctions to warrant the assumption that one murder was to be avenged by another. The retribution might take another form and be performed by means, instruments, and agencies of Hamlet's choosing, directing, and devising, and not by his own hands. He might direct, others perform. And this is precisely what was done. To have rushed off and slain the King would have been the low and mean revenge of the common assassin. To an introspective philosopher, such as Hamlet, that course would seem merely to deprive the King of the consciousness that his sin was found out. What revenge for Hamlet would there have been in that ? Except of course the "something after death" in which Hamlet and all of us believe. Hamlet's sensitiveness demanded a more excruciating revenge. He therefore (and without delay or dilatoriness) hit upon the device of the play that by the very cunning of the scene would so strike the King's soul that he would proclaim his malefactions as by his conduct he did. The "mouse-trap" succeeded. The King was frighted with false fire. He saw acted before his own eyes the foul and unnatural murder himself had committed; acted in the play he knew that Hamlet had provided for him. The hot iron is searing his vitals; the agony of a burning conscience is distracting his very being; he realises that Hamlet knows all. The murder is out, spoken with most miraculous organ. could have happened had Hamlet killed the King. venge is complete and he is able to say "let the stricken deer None of this His re go weep." He safely leaves the rest to the whirligig of events. No one can argue I do not wish to be misunderstood. that the killing of the King was not present to Hamlet's mind. There are many passages that show he considered such a course the natural period to his revenge, not a portion of it but a consequence. The only trace of tardiness by Hamlet is in the fact that he did not denounce the King immediately after the play scene and finish the whole business before he was whisked off to England. But there was a reason for his not so doing, viz., his mother. The Ghost had commanded him not to let his soul contrive aught against his mother. Hamlet could not denounce his uncle's villainy without exposing his mother's sin. He therefore stayed his hand, the only time he did so. He knew, however, after the discovery he had made by the play that the deposition and death of the King were in sight. Ultimately the death of the King was essential to the safety of Hamlet, as was the death of Hamlet to the safety of the King. I do not pay much attention to Hamlet's selfdepreciation and self-reproachings They are the natural Indeed, complainings that events do not move fast enough. in one instance (Act II, sc ii, 1 604 et seq.) the complainings urge the play that is to catch the conscience of the King, and show clearly that Hamlet's plan was that the revenge should precede the death. I pass by the speech "Now might I do it pat" as a mere incident as Hamlet is on the way to his mother's closet and if the emphasis be on the "I," thus; "Now might I do it pat" it suggests the idea of agency in the acts of revenge up to that point. I am unfortunate in not having the entire support in my contention of Professor A. C. Bradley, undoubtedly the highest living authority on matters Shakespearean. His work, Shakespearean Tragedy, shows indeed we are in entire concurrence respecting the view that Hamlet is by no means represented as a man naturally inactive or irresolute. In correspondence with me, however, he says, that he cannot say he is convinced on the point raised by me He gives what seem to him two fatal objections, viz., in his own words: 1. I do not find evidence in the play that Hamlet's 'revenge' meant anything to him except his killing the murderer, while 2. it is clear that it did mean that.. I cannot explain this fact on your view. If Shakespeare meant what you take him to mean, why is this nowhere indicated in his speeches? There is no sign, for instance, that the play scene was arranged to torment the murderer. It was arranged, ostensibly, to satisfy Hamlet's doubts; and on this satisfaction, action was to follow. Why does it not follow? Because,, I should answer, of that peculiar state of mind which is displayed in the solioquies (and elsewhere) and the purpose of these soliloquies is to display this state of mind. Why does Shakespeare emphasise it so persistently, if his idea of Hamlet corresponded with yours And if it so corresponded, why does he not represent it in these soliquies? It would have been perfectly easy to do so. I respectfully submit to you that it is not really possible to conceive them as 'natural complainings' that events do not move fast enough. Surely they are largely self-reproaches at the fact that a deed is not done, the deed being always imagined as the killing of the murderer." I feel the temerity of not being able to see eye to eye with so able and just a critic as Professor Bradley on the points raised. It seems to me that there was something more intended in the play-scene than to saitsfy Hamlet's doubts. That such satisfaction was purposed is certain. Hamlet's speeches do not always clearly indicate his thoughts or states of mind, but his words about the play as a means of satisfying his doubts are not only clear but emphatic. Yet his utterance is equally clear and emphatic on a further point. The play's the thing, he tells us, to catch the conscience of the King. Why should Hamlet trouble himself about the King's conscience, if all he wanted was to satisfy his own doubts, consistent only with the view that if and when satisfied instant assassination would follow? He expected, as I understand him, that if the Ghost had spoken truly the conscience of the King would be touched to which I can attach no other meaning than that remorse should and would follow. It is conceivable that at first, that is immediately after the ghost scene, Hamlet may have had the sole notion of assassination to satisfy his revenge, and that after the play scene there was added thereto the idea that in prolonged remorse was a keener relish of revenge than in an immediate and sudden assassination. And does not the play scene succeed in this respect as well in resolving Hamlet's doubts ? Otherwise, what is the meaning of "Why, let the stricken deer go weep." Is it not equivalent Yes, indeed the The King rushes to saying "He knows I know; let it work." “O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; A brothers' murder" O wretched state! O bosom black as death Surely the stricken deer is weeping. I feel the force of Professor Bradley's objection that Hamlet does not refer in the Soliloquies to the remorse of the murderer as a factor in the revenge and that it would have been very easy for Shakespeare to have done so. But Hamlet is purposely represented as an enigma, and Shakespeare (as Goethe often did) may have intentionally refrained from fore. shadowing everything. At any rate Hamlet undoubtedly postponed the conclusion of his revenge (which as already said was the death of the King) for reasons sufficient to himself, though nowhere divulged. It is evident indeed from the closet scene with his mother that he had decided to postpone the finish of the business, as is evident from the counsel he gives his mother respecting her future conduct, and also from his virtual acquiescence in the trip to England What reason could there be for the delay in the execution of the deed he soliquised about except that the striken deer should longer weep? I emphasise also that in the scene with his mother, not one word is uttered respecting the assassination of the King. And yet what was his frame of mind? Surely if he had any immediate murderous attempt in view he could not have restrained an allusion when he had just said Now could I drink hot blood And do such bitter business as the day It seems A deed had to be done; why did it not follow ? to me that the answer may be summarised thus: Hamlet in grief at the death of his father has a still greater grief in the |