Hamlet · William Shakespeare
ACTUS SECUNDUS.[1]
_Enter Polonius, and Reynoldo._ [Sidenote: _Enter old Polonius, with his man, or two._] _Polon._ Giue him his money, and these notes _Reynoldo_.[2] [Sidenote: this money] _Reynol._ I will my Lord. _Polon._ You shall doe maruels wisely: good _Reynoldo_, [Sidenote: meruiles] Before you visite him you make inquiry [Sidenote: him, to make inquire] Of his behauiour.[3] _Reynol._ My Lord, I did intend it. _Polon._ Marry, well said; Very well said. Looke you Sir, Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris; And how, and who; what meanes; and where they keepe: What company, at what expence: and finding By this encompassement and drift of question, That they doe know my sonne: Come you more neerer[4] Then your particular demands will touch it, Take you as 'twere some distant knowledge of him, And thus I know his father and his friends, [Sidenote: As thus] And in part him. Doe you marke this _Reynoldo_? _Reynol._ I, very well my Lord. _Polon._ And in part him, but you may say not well; But if't be hee I meane, hees very wilde; Addicted so and so; and there put on him What forgeries you please: marry, none so ranke, As may dishonour him; take heed of that: But Sir, such wanton, wild, and vsuall slips, As are Companions noted and most knowne To youth and liberty.
_Reynol._ But my good Lord.[5] _Polon._ Wherefore should you doe this?[6] _Reynol._ I my Lord, I would know that. _Polon._ Marry Sir, heere's my drift, And I belieue it is a fetch of warrant:[7] [Sidenote: of wit,] You laying these slight sulleyes[8] on my Sonne, [Sidenote: sallies[8]] As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i'th'working: [Sidenote: soiled with working,] Marke you your party in conuerse; him you would sound, Hauing euer seene. In the prenominate crimes, [Sidenote: seene in the] The youth you breath of guilty, be assur'd He closes with you in this consequence: Good sir, or so, or friend, or Gentleman. According to the Phrase and the Addition,[9] [Sidenote: phrase or the] Of man and Country. _Reynol._ Very good my Lord. _Polon._ And then Sir does he this? [Sidenote: doos a this a doos, what was _I_] He does: what was I about to say? I was about to say somthing: where did I leaue? [Sidenote: By the masse I was] _Reynol._ At closes in the consequence: At friend, or so, and Gentleman.[10] [Footnote 1: _1st Q._ I faith not a whit, no not a whit, As you may bridle it not disparage him a iote.] [Footnote 4: The lines are properly arranged in _Q_. A sauagenes in vnreclamed blood, Of generall assault. --that is, 'which assails all.']
_Ophe_. My Lord, as I was sowing in my Chamber, [Sidenote: closset,] Lord _Hamlet_ with his doublet all vnbrac'd,[5] No hat vpon his head, his stockings foul'd, Vngartred, and downe giued[6] to his Anckle, Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, And with a looke so pitious in purport, As if he had been loosed out of hell, [Footnote 2: The word windlaces is explained in the dictionaries as _shifts, subtleties_--but apparently on the sole authority of this passage. There must be a figure in _windlesses_, as well as in _assaies of Bias_, which is a phrase plain enough to bowlers: the trying of other directions than that of the _jack_, in the endeavour to come at one with the law of the bowl's bias. I find _wanlass_ a term in hunting: it had to do with driving game to a given point--whether in part by getting to windward of it, I cannot tell. The word may come of the verb wind, from its meaning '_to manage by shifts or expedients_': _Barclay_. As he has spoken of fishing, could the _windlesses_ refer to any little instrument such as now used upon a fishing-rod? I do not think it. And how do the words _windlesses_ and _indirections_ come together? Was a windless some contrivance for determining how the wind blew? I bethink me that a thin withered straw is in Scotland called a _windlestrae_: perhaps such straws were thrown up to find out 'by indirection' the direction of the wind.
The press-reader sends me two valuable quotations, through Latham's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, from Dr. H. Hammond (1605-1660), in which _windlass_ is used as a verb:-- 'A skilful woodsman, by windlassing, presently gets a shoot, which, without taking a compass, and thereby a commodious stand, he could never have obtained.' 'She is not so much at leasure as to windlace, or use craft, to satisfy them.' To _windlace_ seems then to mean 'to steal along to leeward;' would it be absurd to suggest that, so-doing, the hunter _laces the wind_? Shakspere, with many another, I fancy, speaks of _threading the night_ or _the darkness_. Johnson explains the word in the text as 'A handle by which anything is turned.'] [Page 70] To speake of horrors: he comes before me. _Polon._ Mad for thy Loue? _Ophe._ My Lord, I doe not know: but truly I do feare it.[1] _Polon._ What said he? _Ophe._[2] He tooke me by the wrist, and held me hard; Then goes he to the length of all his arme; And with his other hand thus o're his brow, He fals to such perusall of my face, As he would draw it. Long staid he so, [Sidenote: As a] At last, a little shaking of mine Arme: And thrice his head thus wauing vp and downe; He rais'd a sigh, so pittious and profound, That it did seeme to shatter all his bulke, [Sidenote: As it] And end his being. That done, he lets me goe, And with his head ouer his shoulders turn'd, [Sidenote: shoulder] He seem'd to finde his way without his eyes, For out adores[3] he went without their helpe; [Sidenote: helps,] And to the last, bended their light on me.
_Polon._ Goe with me, I will goe seeke the King, [Sidenote: Come, goe] This is the very extasie of Loue, Whose violent property foredoes[4] it selfe, And leads the will to desperate Vndertakings, As oft as any passion vnder Heauen, [Sidenote: passions] That does afflict our Natures. I am sorrie, What haue you giuen him any hard words of late? _Ophe_. No my good Lord: but as you did command, [Sidenote: 42, 82] I did repell his Letters, and deny'de His accesse to me.[5] _Pol_. That hath made him mad. I am sorrie that with better speed and Judgement [Sidenote: better heede] [Sidenote: 83] I had not quoted[6] him. I feare he did but trifle, [Sidenote: coted[6] | fear'd] And meant to wracke thee: but beshrew my iealousie: [Footnote 2: The detailed description of Hamlet and his behaviour that follows, must be introduced in order that the side mirror of narrative may aid the front mirror of drama, and between them be given a true notion of his condition both mental and bodily. Although weeks have passed since his interview with the Ghost, he is still haunted with the memory of it, still broods over its horrible revelation. That he had, probably soon, begun to feel far from certain of the truth of the apparition, could not make the thoughts and questions it had awaked, cease tormenting his whole being. The stifling smoke of his mother's conduct had in his mind burst into loathsome flame, and through her he has all but lost his faith in humanity. To know his uncle a villain, was to know his uncle a villain; to know his mother false, was to doubt women, doubt the whole world.
In the meantime Ophelia, in obedience to her father, and evidently without reason assigned, has broken off communication with him: he reads her behaviour by the lurid light of his mother's. She too is false! she too is heartless! he can look to her for no help! She has turned against him to curry favour with his mother and his uncle! Can she be such as his mother! Why should she not be? His mother had seemed as good! He would give his life to know her honest and pure. Might he but believe her what he had believed her, he would yet have a hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest! If he could but know the truth! Alone with her once more but for a moment, he would read her very soul by the might of his! He must see her! He would see her! In the agony of a doubt upon which seemed to hang the bliss or bale of his being, yet not altogether unintimidated by a sense of his intrusion, he walks into the house of Polonius, and into the chamber of Ophelia.
Ever since the night of the apparition, the court, from the behaviour assumed by Hamlet, has believed his mind affected; and when he enters her room, Ophelia, though such is the insight of love that she is able to read in the face of the son the father's purgatorial sufferings, the picture of one 'loosed out of hell, to speak of horrors,' attributes all the strangeness of his appearance and demeanour, such as she describes them to her father, to that supposed fact. But there is, in truth, as little of affected as of actual madness in his behaviour in her presence. When he comes before her pale and trembling, speechless and with staring eyes, it is with no simulated insanity, but in the agonized hope, scarce distinguishable from despair, of finding, in the testimony of her visible presence, an assurance that the doubts ever tearing his spirit and sickening his brain, are but the offspring of his phantasy. There she sits!--and there he stands, vainly endeavouring through her eyes to read her soul! for, alas, there's no art To find the mind's construction in the face! --until at length, finding himself utterly baffled, but unable, save by the removal of his person, to take his eyes from her face, he retires speechless as he came. Such is the man whom we are now to see wandering about the halls and corridors of the great castle-palace.
He may by this time have begun to doubt even the reality of the sight he had seen. The moment the pressure of a marvellous presence is removed, it is in the nature of man the same moment to begin to doubt; and instead of having any reason to wish the apparition a true one, he had every reason to desire to believe it an illusion or a lying spirit. Great were his excuse even if he forced likelihoods, and suborned witnesses in the court of his own judgment. To conclude it false was to think his father in heaven, and his mother not an adulteress, not a murderess! At once to kill his uncle would be to seal these horrible things irrevocable, indisputable facts. Strongest reasons he had for not taking immediate action in vengeance; but no smallest incapacity for action had share in his delay. The Poet takes recurrent pains, as if he foresaw hasty conclusions, to show his hero a man of promptitude, with this truest fitness for action, that he would not make unlawful haste. Without sufficing assurance, he would have no part in the fate either of the uncle he disliked or the mother he loved.] [Page 72] It seemes it is as proper to our Age, [Sidenote: By heauen it is] To cast beyond our selues[1] in our Opinions, As it is common for the yonger sort To lacke discretion.[2] Come, go we to the King, This must be knowne, which being kept close might moue More greefe to hide, then hate to vtter loue.[3] [Sidenote: Come.] _Exeunt._
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.