Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine; (3)

And thy best graces fpend it at thy will.

But now, my coufin Hamlet, and my fon---
Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind.

[Afide. King. How is it that the clouds ftill hang on you? Ham. Not fo, my Lord, I am too much i' th'

fun.

Queen. Good Hamlet, caft thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy veiled lids,

Seek for thy noble father in the duft ;

Thou knoweft 'tis common; all that live must die, Paffing through nature to eternity.

Ham. Ay, Madam, it is common.

Queen. If it be,

Why feems it fo particular with thee?

Ham. Seems, Madam? nay, it is; I know not
feems:

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor cuftomary fuits of folemn black,
Nor windy fufpiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, fhews of grief,
That can denote me truly. Thefe indeed feem,
For they are actions that a man might play;

(3) Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine,

And thy fair graces; Spend it at thy will.] This is the pointing in both Mr Pope's editions; but the Poet's meaning is loft by it, and the clofe of the fentence miferably flattened. The pointing I have reftored, is that, of the beft copies, and the fenfe this; "You have my leave to go. Laertes; make the faireft ufe you pleafe of your time, and fpend it at your will with the faireft graces you are ma fter of."

But I have that within which paffeth fhew:
Thefe but the trappings and the fuits of woe.
King. 'Tis fweet and commendable in your na-
ture, Hamlet,

To give thefe mourning duties to your father:
But you muft know, your father loft a father; (4)
That father loft, loft his; and the furviver bound
In filial obligation, for fome term,

To do obfequious forrow. But to persevere
In obftinate condolement, is a course
Of impious ftubbornnefs, unmanly grief.
It fhews a will most uncorrect to Heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding fimple and unfchooled
For what we know must be, and is as commone
As any the most vulgar thing to fenfe,
Why fhould we, in our peevith oppofition,
Take it to heart? fy! 'tis a fault to Heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to Nature,
To Reafon moft abfurd; whofe common theme
Is death of fathers, and who ftill hath cried,
From the firft corfe till he that died to-day,
* This must be fo." We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us

As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;

(4) But you must know, your father loft a father;

That father his. This fuppofed refinement is from Mr Pope; but all the editions elfe, that I have met with, old and modern, read;

That father loft, loft his.

The reduplication of which word here gives an energy and elegance, which is much eafer to be conceived than explained in terms. And every judicious reader of this Poet must have obferved how frequent it is with him to make this reduplication, where he intends either to affert or deny, augment or diminish, or add a degree of vehemence to his expreflion.

And with't no lefs nobility of love, (5).
Than that which deareft father bears his fon,
Do I impart tow'rd you. For your intent (6)
In going back to school to Wittenberg,
It is moft retrograde to our defire:

And we beseech you, bead you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our fon.

Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers,
Hamlet:

I pr'ythee, stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.
Ham. I fhall in all my beft obey you, Madam.
King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply;
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits fmiling to my heart, in grace whereof
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,.
But the great cannon to the clouds fhall tell;

(5) And with no less nobility of love

Than that which dearest father bears his fon,

Do I impart towards you. But what does the King im part? We want the fubftantive governed of the verb. The: King had declared Hamlet his immediate fucceffor, and with that declaration, he muft mean, he imparts to him as noblea love, as ever fond father tendered to his own fon. I have ventured to make the text conform with this fenfe. (6)

For your intent

1

In going back to fchool to Wittenberg;] The Poet ufes a prolepfis here; for the univerfity at Wittenberg was opened by Frederick III..elector of Saxony, in the year 1502, feve ral ages later in time than the date of Hamlet. But 1 defign this remark for another purpofe. I would take notice, ' that a confiderable fpace of years is fpent in this tragedy; or Hamlet, as a Prince, fhould be too old to go to an univerfity. We here find him a fcholar refident at that univerfity; but, in act fifth, we find him plainly thirty years old; for the gravedigger had taken up that occupation the very day on which young Hamlet was born, and had followed it, as he fays, thirty years.

And the King's rowfe the heaven fhall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

Manet HAMLET.

[Exeunt.

Ham. Oh, that this too-too-folid flesh would melt, Thaw, and refolve itfelf into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed (7)

(7) Or that the Everlafting had not fixed

His cannon 'gainft felf-flaughter!] The generality of the editions read thus, as if the Poet's thoughts were, Or that the Almighty had not planted his artillery, his refentment, or arms of vengeance against felf-murder. But the word which I have reftored to the text, (and which was espoused by the accurate Mr Hughes, who gave an edition of this play) is the Poet's true reading. i. e. That he had not reftrained fuicide by his exprefs law, and peremptory prohibition. Mif takes are perpetually made in the old editions of our Poet, betwixt thofe two words, cannon and canon. I fhall now fubjoin my reafons why I think the Poet intended to fay Heaven had fixed its injunction rather than its artillery. In the first place, I much doubt the propriety of the phrafe, fixing cannon, in the meaning here fuppofed. The military expreffion, which imports what would be neecffary to the fenfe of the Poet's thought, is mounting or planting cannon; and whenever cannon is faid to be fixed, it is when the enemy become mafters of it and nail it down. In the next place, to fix a Canon, or law, is the term of the civilians peculiar to this bufinefs. This Virgil had in his mind when he wrote;

Æneid. VI.

Leges fixit pretio, atque refixit. So Cicero, in his Philippic orations; Num figentur rurfus he Tabula, quas vos decretis veftris refixijiis? And it was the conftant cuftom of the Romans to fay, upon this occafion, figere legem, as the Greeks before them ufed the fynonymous term νόμον παραπῆξαι, and called their fatues thence παρα Thy para. But my laft reafon, and which fways most with me, is from the Poet's own turn and caft of thought. For, as he has done in a great many more inftances, it is the very fentiment which he falls into in another of his plays, though he has clothed it in different expreflion;

'gainst felf-flaughter

There is a prohibition fo divine,
That cravens my weak hand.

Cymbeline.

Together with that fair and warlike form,

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did fometime march? by Heaven, I charge thee, Mar. It is offended.

Ber. See! it stalks away.

Hor. Stay; fpeak: I charge thee, speak.

[fpeak.

[Exit Ghoft.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble and look Is not this fomething more than fantasy?

What think you of it?

[pale.

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the fenfible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Mar. Is it not like the King?

Hor. As thou art to thyself.

Such was the very armour he had on,
When he the ambitious Norway combated:
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
He fmote the fleaded Polack on the ice.

'Tis ftrange------

[hour,

Mar. Thus twice before, and just at this dead With martial stalk, he has gone by our watch.

Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know But, in the grofs and scope of my opinion, [not: This bodes fome strange eruption to our state.

Mar. Good now fit down, and tell me, he that knows,

Why this fame strict and most obfervant watch
So nightly toils the fubjects of the land?
And why fuch daily caft of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war?
Why fuch imprefs of fhipwrights, whofe fore tak
Does not divide the Sunday from the week?
What might be toward, that this fweaty hafte
Doth make the night joint labourer with the day
Who is't that can inform me ?

« ZurückWeiter »