NOTE 10.

THAT this interval must be a considerable one will be easily seen on careful examination of the remaining scenes of the play. It might be thought that the break occurs at the end of the next scene (Scene 5); but that is impossible, for the conversation between the King and Laertes, which takes place in Scene 7, is evidently part of that which ends Scene 5; the interval occupied by Scene 6 being only sufficient for the King to explain to Laertes the circumstances of Polonius' death, which, if done on the stage, would have been a needless repetition. We find from Scene 6 that Hamlet has returned, the ship in which he sailed having been overtaken by pirates, who made him their prisoner, on the second day of his voyage; how long he was detained by them does not appear, but it must have been for some time, since between Acts IV. and V. there cannot elapse much more than two days, and at the end of Act V. we find that the ambassadors have arrived from England announcing the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and that Fortinbras has returned from his expedition against Poland; so that it is evident that, at this point (Act IV., Scene 4) the break implied by the fall of the act-drop ought to occur. Another great advantage would be gained by this arrangement, for, as the play is at present represented, the incident of Ophelia's madness appears to be very abruptly introduced; she has scarcely had time to hear of her father's death; and the impression produced upon the spectator is that her madness was a preconcerted circumstance, and did not arise naturally from the events as Shakespeare intended it to do. If Ophelia's mad scene were to commence a new act, it would be much more effective; and the spectators might then conceive, what was probably the intention of the author, that the abrupt departure of Hamlet for England without attempting any explanation to her, or expressing sorrow for the fatal mistake by which he had killed her father, co-operated with that father's violent and sudden death to overturn a mind on which secret sorrow, and bitter disappointment, had long been preying.

At the end of the "Additional Notes" will be found an arrangement of all the scenes in this play, showing the amount of time occupied by the action and the length of the various intervals supposed to elapse at different points in the course of the tragedy.

NOTE 11.

THAT Shakespeare intended to refer to some particular expedition in this passage I have not the slightest doubt; but, unfortunately, I have not been able to trace the source of this description. The particulars given are very remarkable; it was a little patch of

ground-not worth five ducats to farm-yet it was garrisoned by the Polack. I hoped to find the original of this unprofitable expedition in some of the "adventures" undertaken by Sir Walter Raleigh, or by one of the Earls of Essex; but I have not succeeded to my own satisfaction. There are certain points of resemblance between the enterprise of Walter Devereux in 1573, the object of which was to conquer Ulster, or a portion of it, and this expedition of Fortinbras. An unfavourable critic might speak of the members of that adventurous body, of which Walter Devereux was the leader, as "a list of lawless resolutes" without doing them any grievous wrong. Of the apparent value of the country which these brave butchers were to conquer, some idea may be formed from the description given by Froude (vol. x., page 554):

“A few years before, Sir Henry Sidney's progress through Ulster had been gravely compared to Alexander's journey into Bactria. The central plains of Australia, the untrodden jungles of Borneo, or the still vacant spaces in our map of Africa, alone now on the globe's surface represent districts as unknown and mysterious as the north-east angle of Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth. Ulster was a desert," &c., &c.

66

One feels on reading this eloquent description that five ducats would have been a high rent to have paid for such a paradise; still the extent of it does not answer to the description in the text. In 1573 Shakespeare was only nine years old; in 1580, when Walter Raleigh joined Grey's force in the attack upon the fort of Smerwick, in Dingle Bay, he was only sixteen: yet both events might have made some impression on his youthful memory. Smerwick, the wretched fort in which the unhappy Spaniards and Italians held out for two days against the English butchers, answers very well to "the Officer's" description of the place against which Fortinbras was leading his "lawless resolutes." It was a very small neck of land joined to the shore by a bank of sand" (Froude, vol. xi., page 224). It was garrisoned and was regularly besieged and taken by Grey and his followers; the use they made of their conquest is a matter of history; and let us hope few fouler stains rest on the English name. If I could positively identify either Walter Devereux' expedition, or that of Grey, as the original which suggested Shakespeare's description in the text, I should make a proviso, that it is not to be supposed, for one moment, that Fortinbras was guilty of the fiendish barbarities which both those bloodthirsty murderers practised.

The whole of this scene (with the exception of Fortinbras' short speech) has no parallel in the Quarto of 1603; it was evidently added by Shakespeare on the revision of the play, a circumstance which confirms me in the belief that he had some enterprise of that time in his mind.

Ir would seem that, with "the rabble" at least, the popularity of Claudius had been short-lived. His accession was probably more owing to the nobles than to the people: they had wished to place young Hamlet on his father's throne; and now that he had been sent off by Claudius to England, in order, as they thought, to get rid of him as a successor, the people clamoured to be allowed to choose for themselves and to make Laertes King: Gervinus credits the energy of Laertes with the creation of this " rebellion, which looks giant-like;" but it is probable that he found the work of creation at least half-done: the fact that Hamlet had been sent out of the kingdom had more to do with their riotous attitude than any love either of Laertes himself or of his father, who had been so mysteriously killed. On the question as to whether the Crown of Denmark was elective or not, see an interesting note given in Malone's "Shakespeare" (ed. 1821, vol. vii., p. 209). I must here point out one touch of Shakespeare's art which I have omitted to notice in the text. Immediately there is any mention of rebellion the Queen is as zealous for her husband's cause as if she had never heard anything to shake her faith in him and weaken her affection; this is right; for after all she had chosen him as her lover, and, once married to him, it is more noble in her to be true to him with all his vices than to plot against him, as she proposes her readiness to do in the suppressed scene of the Quarto 1603. (See Appendix M.)

NOTE 13.

THERE is some reason for supposing Horatio to have been a soldier, for Bernardo says (Act I, Scene 1, lines 12, 13)—

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

"Rivals" means "companions," or "partners" (see Warburton's Note and Ritson's addition to it-Malone's " Shakespeare" (1821), vol. vii., p. 172). Malone, in his note, says: "Horatio is certainly not an officer, but Hamlet's fellow-student at Wittenburg; but as he accompanied Marcellus and Bernardo on the watch from a motive of curiosity, our poet considers him very properly as an associate with them."

So again when Hamlet asks (Act I., Scene 2, line 225)

Hold you the watch to-night?

In the Quartos the answer is assigned to " All," in the Folio to "Both "-i e., to Marcellus and Bernardo only, a reading generally adopted.

But Horatio's own language in his speech in the same scene (lines 196-208) may determine the question; for his language is scarcely reconcilable with the supposition that he was a fellowofficer of Marcellus and Bernardo, or as if "to keep the watch were his duty. At the same time I do not see the necessity of drawing any distinction between Bernardo and Francisco; they all appear to be on equal terms; an officer does not usually relieve a private soldier on guard. But Bernardo seems to have been on equal terms with Marcellus, who seems to assume a tone of superiority over Francisco. I think all the difficulties on this point might be got over if we suppose that there was in the Court of Denmark some body like our "Yeomen of the Guard," or "Gentlemen at Arms," composed of gentlemen of good birth to whom the duty of keeping the watch near the Palace was committed. Of this body even Horatio might have been a member.

It is somewhat remarkable that, whether by the design of Shakespeare or by accident, Horatio never once speaks to the King throughout the play. The King speaks to him only once (Act V., Scene 1, line 281), when he bids him wait upon Hamlet

I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.

In the scene of Ophelia's madness, when Horatio is present, the King does not address himself to Horatio, but to the "Gentleman ”* who had ushered in Ophelia (see Act IV., Scene 5).

Horatio was certainly not in favour at the Court of Claudius; he seems to be the only person besides Hamlet who viewed the conduct of that king unfavourably.

This passage, as it stands, seems to me almost hopelessly obscure. In Malone's "Shakespeare" (1821) there is absolutely no note on the passage. Caldecott does not notice it; and even that obstinate illuminator of dark passages, Mr. Collier's old annotator, passes it by without a word of comment.

The editors of the "Clarendon Hamlet" have a note in which they give Keightley's conjecture, "how should it but be so ?" They

* Sometimes the "Gentleman" is omitted, and Horatio only is present, in accordance with the stage direction of the Folios.

66

say, we should have expected, 'how should it not be so ?' but they do not give the anonymous conjecture to be found in the footnotes of the "Cambridge Shakespeare" (vol. viii., p. 144), "how shoul't not be so?" which I suspect to be the right reading. They suggest an explanation of the passage as it stands-viz., "that the first clause refers to Hamlet's return, the second to Laertes "feelings." (See Clarendon Press Series, "Hamlet," pp. 204, 205.)

I confess that this, the only attempt to explain the words, as they stand, which I can find, does not satisfy me. The fact is, no sense can be made of them, if read as printed in the text. The insertion of the "not" makes them perfectly intelligible. It has occurred to me, as there is no authority for this insertion, that if the word "should "" were italicised we might make sense of it, thus

If it be so

(ie., if Hamlet has come back because, on consideration, he did not choose to go to England)

As how should it be so?

(i.e., how should there be any question about it being so?)

How (could it be) otherwise?

I admit that we should expect, in this case, the word "if" to be repeated, but I can make sense of the speech in no other manner. The general meaning is clear: the King is puzzling over this sudden. return of Hamlet, and he rapidly reviews the situation. First he asks

Are all the rest come back?

Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

Surely his trusty spaniels, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, cannot have disobeyed or deceived him! Then where are they? They would not go to England without Hamlet, and surely they would not let him escape. The writing is certainly Hamlet's; he answers to Laertes' inquiry

"Naked !"

And in a postscript here, he says "Alone."

Hamlet cannot Rosencrantz and Guilden

Can they have been wrecked and he alone saved? have discovered the plot against him. stern did not know the contents of the letter-they could not have betrayed him. No-it must be that he has on a sudden caprice refused to continue the voyage, and made the sailors turn back. Yes, it must be soo-without question it must be. Then in that case how can he get rid of Hamlet and appease Laertes at one and the same time? Something like these thoughts would pass through the mind of Claudius before he succeeds in hitting upon the ingenious scheme which he now proceeds to divulge to Laertes.