Part 7 (2/2)
In 'Hamlet,' also, it is a 'canon' [29] fixed against self-slaughter, which restrains him from leaving, out of his own impulse, this whilom paradise, this 'unweeded garden' of life.
Montaigne, whose philosophy aims at making us conversant with death as with a friend, is yet terrified by it. Altogether, he says, he would fain pa.s.s his life at his ease; and if he could escape from blows, even by taking refuge under a calf's skin, [30] he would not be the man who would shrink from it.
In a few graphic words Shakspere brands this cowardly clinging to life.
In the scene where Hamlet gives to Polonius nothing more willingly than his leave, the new quarto (in every other respect the conclusion of this scene is identical in both editions) contains these additional words:--'Except my life, except my life, except my life.' Of the 'calf's skin' we hear in the first scene of act v., where those are called sheep and calves, who seek out a.s.surance in parchments which are made of sheep-skins and of calves-skins too.
Montaigne, who does not cease pondering over the pale fellow, Death, looks for consolation from the ancients. He takes Sokrates as the model of all great qualities; and he reproduces, in his own manner, the speech this sage, who was fearless of death, made before his judges. First of all, he makes him say that the qualities of death are unknown to him, as he has never seen anybody who could instruct him in them. 'Those who fear death, presuppose that they know it....
Perhaps death may be an indifferent thing; perhaps a desirable one.
However, one may believe that, if it be a transmigration from one place to another, it will be an amelioration ... and free us from having any more to do with wicked and corrupt judges. If it be a consummation (_aneantiss.e.m.e.nt_) [31] of our being, it is also an amelioration to enter into a long and quiet night. We find nothing so sweet in life as a quiet rest--a tranquil and profound sleep without dreams.'
Now compare the monologue, 'To be or not to be,' of the first quarto with the one contained in the second. It will then be seen that those Sokratic ideas, rendered by Montaigne in his own manner, have been worked into the first quarto. In the latter we hear nothing at all about the end of our being (a complete destruction or _consummation_) producing an amelioration. [32] Shakspere expresses this thought by the words that if we could say that, by a sleep, we 'end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to--'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.' [33]
Keen commentators have pointed out the contradiction in Hamlet's monologue, where he speaks of--
The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns,
whilst he saw such a traveller in his father's ghost. Certainly there were then, even as there are now, besides the logical thinkers, also a considerable number of inconsistent persons who believed in supernaturally revealed messages, and who, nevertheless, now and then, felt contradictory thoughts rising within themselves. Why should the great master, who exhausted in his dramatic personages almost all types of human nature, not have put such a character also on the stage?
To the poet, whose object it was to show 'to the very age and body of time his form and pressure' (this pa.s.sage is wanting in the first quarto), the presentation of such a psychological problem of contradictory thoughts must have been of far greater attraction than an antic.i.p.atory description of a metaphysician aching under the heavy burden of his philosophic speculations. The latter is the character attributed, by some, to Hamlet. But we think that such an utterly strange modern creature would have been altogether incomprehensible to the energetic English mind of this period.
In the course of the drama, Shakspere makes it sufficiently clear that the thoughts by which Hamlet's 'native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er,' have come from the narrow cells of a superst.i.tious Christianity, not from the free use of his reason. According to Montaigne, however, we ought to 'use our reason only for strengthening our belief.'
Hamlet, with Purgatory and h.e.l.l, into which he has cast a glance, before his eyes, would fain fly, like Montaigne, from them. In his Essay I. 19 [34] the latter says that our soul must be steeled against the powers of death; 'for, as long as Death frightens us, how is it possible to make a single step without feverish agitation?'
Hamlet as little attains this condition of quiet equanimity as the pensive and pondering Montaigne. The latter, however, speaks of souls that know no fear. It is true, he has to go to the ancients in order to meet with this frame of mind. Quoting Horace [35]--
Non vultus instantis tyranni Mente quat.i.t solida, neque Auster, Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae, Nec fulminantis magna Jovis ma.n.u.s--
he describes such a soul as being made '_mistress over her pa.s.sions and concupiscence; having become proof against poverty and disgrace, and all the other injuries of fortune_. Let those who can, gain this advantage. Herein lies true and sovereign freedom that allows us to scorn force and injustice, and to deride prisons and fetters.'
To a friend with such a soul, to a living Horace or Horatio, Hamlet addresses himself. Horatio also is his fellow-student and friend from the University days at Wittenberg, and he has made the views of the new philosophical school quite his own. He does not tremble before the fire of Purgatory and h.e.l.l. Despising death, he wishes, in the last scene, to empty the cup of poison from which his friend Hamlet has drunk, in order to follow him. When the latter keeps him back, Horatio makes answer--
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
Hamlet, trusting more to this firmer and truly antique character than to his own, requests Horatio to aid him during the play-scene in watching the King, so as to procure more natural evidence of his guilt.
This school-friend--how often may he have philosophised with him!--is to him
as just a man As e'er my conversation coped withal.
The following pa.s.sage, [36] in which Horatio's character is described by Hamlet, is wanting in the first quarto:--
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, And could of men distinguish, her election Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing; A man that fortune's buffets and rewards Hath ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger To sound what stop she please. Give me that man That is not pa.s.sion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee.
How near these words of Shakspere come to those with which Montaigne describes an intrepid man after the poem of Horace!
But, in spite of subtle reasoning, the French philosopher cannot fathom the cause why he himself does not attain any mind's ease, and why he has no plain and straightforward faculty (_nulle faculte simple_) within himself. He once [37] uses the expression, 'We trouble death with the care of life, and life with the care of death;' but he does not succeed in firmly attaching himself to life with all the fibres of his nature, and gathering strength from the mother-earth, like Antaeus.
He oscillates between two antagonistic views, and feels unable to decide for either the one or the other.
We have explained the elements of which Hamlet's complex character is made up. He is an adherent of old superst.i.tions and dogmas; he believes in Purgatory, a h.e.l.l, and a Devil, and in the miraculous powers of confession, holy communion, and the extreme unction. Yet, to some degree, he is a Humanist, and would fain grant to Nature certain rights. Scarcely has he yielded to the impulses of his blood, than doubts begin to rise in him, and he begins to fear the Devil, who might lure him into perdition. This inner discord, creating, as it does, a mistrust in his own self, induces him, in the most important task of his life, to appeal to Horatio. To him he says that, if the King's occulted guilt does not come out ('unkennel itself'), he (Hamlet) will look upon the apparition as a d.a.m.ned ghost, and (this is new) will think that his 'imaginations are as foul as Vulcan's st.i.thy.' [38]
By the interlude, Hamlet--and in this he is confirmed by Horatio--becomes convinced of the King's guilt. All that he thereupon does is--to recite a little ditty!
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