Part 12 (1/2)

22: ''S wounds' (G.o.d's wounds)--a most characteristic expression; used by Shakspere only in _Hamlet_, in this scene, and again in act v. sc. 2.

23: As yet, Hamlet has but one ground of action--namely, the one which, after the apparition of the Ghost, he set down in his tablets: 'that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain; at least, I am sure, it may be so in Denmark.'

24: Act ii. sc. 2.

25: Essay I. 19.

26: II. 3.

27: Tacitus, _annal_. xiii. 56.

28: Essay I. 19.

29: Act. i. sc. 2.

30: Shakspere already uses this expression in _King John_ (1595) for purposes of mirthful mockery. He makes the b.a.s.t.a.r.d say to the Archduke of Austria (act iii. sc. i):--'Hang a calf's skin on those recreant limbs!'--a circ.u.mstance which convinces us that Shakspere knew the Essays of Montaigne from the original at an early time. We think it a fact important enough to point out that Florio translates _peau d'un veau_ by 'oxe-hide' (fo. 34). We cannot think of any other explanation than that the phrase in question had become so popular through _King John_ as to render it advisable for Florio to steer clear of this rock. Jonson, in his _Volpone_ (act. i. sc. i), makes Mosca the parasite say in regard to his master: 'Covered with hide, instead of skin.'

31: Florio's translation: 'If it be a _consummation_ of one's being'

(p. 627). Shakspere: 'a _consummation_ devoutly to be wished.' This word is only once used by Shakspere in such a sense. It occurs in another sense in _King Lear_ (iv. 6) and _Cymbeline_ (iv. 2), but nowhere else in his works.

32: Monologue of the first quarto:--

'To be, or not to be, I there's the point, To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all: No, to sleepe, to dreame, I, mary there it goes, For in that dreame of death, when wee awake, And borne before an everlasting judge, From whence no pa.s.senger ever returned, The undiscovered country, at whose sight The happy smile, and the accursed d.a.m.ned.

But for this, the joyful hope of this, Whol'd beare the scornes of flattery of the world, Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore?

The widow being oppress'd, the orphan wronged, The taste of hunger, or a tyrants raigne, And thousand more calamities besides, To grunte and sweate under the weary life, When that he may his full quietus make, With a bare bodkin, who would this indure, But for a hope of something after death?

Which pushes the brain and doth connfound the sence, Which makes us rather beare those evilles we have, Than flie to others that we know not of.

I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of us all.

Lady in thy orizons, be all my sinnes remembered.

33: On closely examining the copy of Montaigne's Essays in the British Museum, which bears Shakspere's autograph on the t.i.tle-page, we found--long after our treatise had been completed--that on the fly-leaf at the end of the volume is written: _Mors incrta_, (Written somewhat indistinctly, meaning probably _incerta_.

It might also be an abbreviation of 'incertam horam' [_incr.

ho_.], as contained in the Latin verse on p. 626:--

Incertam frustra, mortales, funeris horam Quaeritis, et qua sit mors aditura via.)

626, 627. These two numbers, apparently, refer to the corresponding pages of Montaigne's work, which contain nothing but thoughts about the uncertainty of the hour of death and the hereafter. On p. 627 there is the speech of Sokrates, which in Florio's translation, as shown above, bears such striking resemblance to Hamlet's monologue. There are other Latin sentences on the same fly-leaf, p.r.o.nounced by Sir Frederic Madden to be written by a later pen than Shakspere's. To us, at any rate, the above words and numbers appear to proceed from a different hand than the other sentences. Judgments thereon from persons well versed in the writings of that time would be of great interest.

34: P. 103.

35: I. 19.

36: Act iii. sc. 2.

37: III. 12 (Florio, 626).

38: We do not doubt that this is a sly thrust at Florio, who, in the preface to his translation, calls himself 'Montaigne's Vulcan,' who hatches out Minerva from that 'Jupiter's bigge brain'.