Part 37 (1/2)

NOTE G.

HAMLET'S APOLOGY TO LAERTES.

Johnson, in commenting on the pa.s.sage (V. ii. 237-255), says: 'I wish Hamlet had made some other defence; it is unsuitable to the character of a good or a brave man to shelter himself in falsehood.' And Seymour (according to Furness) thought the falsehood so ign.o.ble that he rejected lines 239-250 as an interpolation!

I wish first to remark that we are mistaken when we suppose that Hamlet is here apologising specially for his behaviour to Laertes at Ophelia's grave. We naturally suppose this because he has told Horatio that he is sorry he 'forgot himself' on that occasion, and that he will court Laertes' favours (V. ii. 75 ff.). But what he says in that very pa.s.sage shows that he is thinking chiefly of the greater wrong he has done Laertes by depriving him of his father:

For, by the image of my cause, I see The portraiture of his.

And it is also evident in the last words of the apology itself that he is referring in it to the deaths of Polonius and Ophelia:

Sir, in this audience, Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil Free me so far in your most generous thoughts, _That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house, And hurt my brother._

But now, as to the falsehood. The charge is not to be set aside lightly; and, for my part, I confess that, while rejecting of course Johnson's notion that Shakespeare wanted to paint 'a good man,' I have momentarily shared Johnson's wish that Hamlet had made 'some other defence' than that of madness. But I think the wish proceeds from failure to imagine the situation.

In the first place, _what_ other defence can we wish Hamlet to have made? I can think of none. He cannot tell the truth. He cannot say to Laertes, 'I meant to stab the King, not your father.' He cannot explain why he was unkind to Ophelia. Even on the false supposition that he is referring simply to his behaviour at the grave, he can hardly say, I suppose, 'You ranted so abominably that you put me into a towering pa.s.sion.' _Whatever_ he said, it would have to be more or less untrue.

Next, what moral difference is there between feigning insanity and a.s.serting it? If we are to blame Hamlet for the second, why not equally for the first?

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 pa.s.sion by the bravery of Laertes' grief, as the whole truth. His raving over the grave is not _mere_ acting. On the contrary, that pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage is as follows (Globe text):

_Ham._ Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally; I pray you, pa.s.s 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]