HAM. What, looked he frowningly? HOR. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. НАМ. HOR. Nay, very pale. HOR. Most constantly. HAM. Pale, or red? And fix'd his eyes upon you? I would I had been there. HOR. It would have much amaz'd you. HAM. Very like, very like stay'd it long? HOR. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred. HAM. If it assume my noble father's person, I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape, And bid me hold my peace. We read these passages so frequently, and to most of us they were so vulgarised by the common declamation taught in schools, that it is not easy so to lend the riper imagination to them as to appreciate all the feelings they express. The idea of a supernatural appearance, assuming the shape of a father, known, remembered with affection and reverence, and lately dead, is in itself so full of terror that few minds could endure it; and the profound effect of such a representation on the sensitive organisation of Hamlet, tempered as it still is by doubts as to the real assumption of his father's person, seems unquestionably indicated by the wild expression that falls from him as to hell gaping between his father's ghost and himself. His soul is shaken with fearful thoughts and fancies and new suspicions; but for a time his more fantastic woe is scattered; and he displays firmness and feeling in taking leave of his friends, with a promise to meet them upon the platform 'twixt eleven and twelve. He maintains his self-command in the few words which he utters when left alone. HAM. My father's spirit in arms! all is not well; These words indicate the first dawn of a suspicion in the mind of Hamlet that his father's death had not arisen from natural causes. No sign of it occurs previously; but it now springs up, and even takes the precise form which we shall see alluded to afterward, when the ghost is telling his story to Hamlet. In what meditations the unhappy prince passes the rest of the anxious day, whether in doubt as to the reality of what he has heard, or in framing forms of words adapted to the awful shade he has undertaken to confront, we can only conjecture. By the other personages of the play the hours are spent in customary avocations. Laertes, about to return to France, takes leave of his sister Ophelia ; their talk is affectionate, although Laertes lectures her with a brother's anxiety, not unwisely, but perhaps more severely than brother beseems, concerning "Hamlet and the trifling of his favours." In his turn, Laertes is lectured by his father, Polonius; with intermixture of prolix comment and good advice. The parting injunction of Laertes to his sister, to remember well what he has said to her, awakens the old man's curiosity; and again Hamlet is discussed, and again, by her father, is Ophelia lectured, and more sternly. Her trusting affection is laughed at by the elderly courtier, who, warming with his own talk, concludes by forbidding her, very peremptorily, from that time forth, to give words or talk with the lord Hamlet. What imprudences of interview had been reported to Laertes and Polonius, we know not; nor what tender recollections existed, to torture the submissive maiden's breast. It is evident that neither Laertes nor his experienced father had great trust or confidence in Hamlet's honour, and that they thought him unsteady and insincere. Ophelia herself answers not a word to their severe rebukes and colder warnings she offers no remonstrance, no excuse, no denial she stills her woman's heart, even when commanded to speak no more with Hamlet; and simply promises obedience. Yet from this dutiful obedience, thus enforced, many evils subsequently spring. : But the day ends, as other days end, and the night comes, as other nights come, except to Hamlet. Upon the platform, at the appointed hour, are met together, 2 Hamlet, and Horatio, and Marcellus. The air is very cold; the clock has struck twelve; and the season draws near wherein the spirit holds its wont to walk. They are silent, or speak briefly of the coldness of the night, and of the hour by the clock which has just struck. The nipping and eager air chills them, and some natural fears perhaps increase its effect: when, suddenly, sounds of flourishing trumpets and rejoicing cannon startle the dull night, and them. These are noisy signals from the supper-table of the convivial king, conformable to his morning promise, and much at variance with the position and thoughts of those upon the dreary platform. Hamlet explains them : HAM. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, Keeps wassel, and the swaggering up-spring reels; And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The triumph of his pledge. The imagination contrasts this picture of the remorseless upstart reveller and the lighted hall of midnight feasting, with the coldness and dark Ꭰ |