kissed the cross, the Prince in turn expressed his love and "The time is out of joint:-0 cursed spite, These last lines have been seized upon by certain com mentators as a proof of the theory that Hamlet's character is tainted by cowardice and vacillation. Trench says: "Hamlet here under the stress of his responsibility appears to deteriorate already. For this very religious man, who desires to go and pray, who is careful to distinguish between grace and mercy, and who says 'God willing' with regard to actions in futurity, now irreligiously curses his birth." These assertions are, as Ishall appear, a shocking misinterpretation which arises from a failure to appreciate Hamlet's strongly Christian character. That he is a very religious man is indeed to his credit, and causes him to seek light and aid from on high for the perform ance of a task which he does not decline, but which he sees is very difficult; that he distinguishes between grace and mer ically distinct as cause and effect; that he says 'God willing cy, reveals his Christian knowledge; for in fact they are radproves his daily life to have been animated by his religious faith. The phrase 'God willing' has always been in common use among devout Christians, and manifests their belief in an all-ruling Providence, who alone is Master of human life and of future activities. That Hamlet has already deteriorated at the close of the first Act, is an assertion so fantastic that its refutation is evident from the consideration of his actual sit uation. The ghost had disappeared just a few moments before. Its horrid revelations so astounding, had inflicted upon Ham let's whole being an overwhelming shock. The intrusion of his friends had allowed him no time to master his thoughts and feelings, no time to reflect upon his position, nor the nature of his task, nor the how, when, and where of its performance. In a maze of confusion, he perceived, however, its seemingly insuperable difficulties; and, in consequence, uttered the words in question. Yet we are asked to believe that they were spoken in fear by a man, who a few minutes before had out-braved Horatio and Marcellus in superhuman daring and reckless indifference to life. As Hamlet has so far shown with certainty no weakness of will or irresolution, but rather a fortitude and quickness of decision and action, his words should surely be read in another sense. Is not his cry against the "cursed spite" of fortune, the voice of his irascible nature, which has been profoundly exasperated by a sense of shame, of wrong, of isolation, and above all by the insurmountable difficulties that encompass his task? Any man endowed like Hamlet with a grand moral nature and a keen sense of honor, would naturally experience an affliction of soul and an irritation of feelings at the horrid thought of a father murdered and a mother disgraced by an uncle whose villainy enthroned is abetted by the powers of the state. Moreover, in presence of his task, Hamlet sees himself in complete isolation. He is estranged from the court of Elsinore, where the Queen enslaved by passion, is blind to her moral degradation, and where the King long addicted to evil is given to riotous revelries. He cannot look for help or guidance to his natural councilors who are now under the power and hostile influence of the criminal monarch. If Horatio, his one trusty friend, be a brave soldier he is no councilor, and without initiative is wholly passive, and devoid of the needed cunning of diplomacy. Truly "the time is out of joint." Evil surrounds him everywhere. The more he reflects, the more impossible his task seems to become; not because he feels a naturally strong repugnance to the shedding of human blood; not because he is weak of will and irresolute in character; but because the "revenge" is surrounded by insuperable impediments. Before him is the "smiling damned villain," enthroned in an armed fortress where shrewd and crafty he is prepared to meet every attack. How shall he reach the criminal and bring him to justice? In total darkness and in presence of impassable obstacles he sees neither the way nor the means of procedure. Objective difficulties apparently insurmountable stare him in the face on every side, irritate his soul, and wring from him the cry of agony against his cruel fate. His wish, therefore, that he were never born into a world where good is ignored and evil praised; where virtue is vanquished and crime triumphant, is but a passionate expression which is prompted, not indeed by his rational, but by his irascible nature, and is indicative of his highly wrought feelings consequent upon his vivid sense of utter helplessness. His words express the crux of the drama, and their solution is the tragedy itself. The Poet would have us understand this fact from the very start; and, therefore, to guard us against the mistaken notion of his hero being a shuffling and vacillating character who, magnificent of intellect, but weak in energy, is ever ready to grasp at excuses for delay, he warns us by the lips of Hamlet at the close of this first Act, that the delay of the "revenge" is due, not to weakness of will, but wholly to subjective and objective causes; that it arises, not from any defect in the hero's character, but entirely and necessarily from the very nature and conditions which underlie the task itself: all this shall be clearly evolved in the progress of the tragic action. ACT SECOND SCENE FIRST THE AGENT'S INSTRUCTIONS The audience has been roused to a keen and concentrated interest during the preceding Act, and now needs some relief from its high tension of mind. Such relief in the Poet's day was not afforded by orchestral interludes, as in the modern drama, but by means intrinsic to the Play itself. As in Macbeth the comic scene of the Porter at the gate brings a grateful interruption of the tense excitement, which was consequent upon Duncan's Murder and its discovery, so in the present instance a senile minister, parading his shallow wisdom, is the innocent and unconscious cause of some moments of restful mirth. The scene by a skillful strategem impresses upon us the idea of a considerable lapse of time since the departure of Laertes for Paris, and also, as a matter of more importance, discloses the morals common to the social life of the times. Hamlet and Laertes are pictured according to their different inclinations: the one, a royal prince imbibing intellectual culture and moral refinement among the Christian people of Germany; the other, a courtier, seeking to acquire the knightly accomplishments which were common to the nobles and cavaliers of Paris. Though the low moral ebb in the social world in which Hamlet was compelled to move on his return to Denmark, stands already revealed in the conduct of Claudius and Gertrude, it is now further illustrated in the senile chancellor, who in euphuistic phrases of seemingly profound instruction, exposes to Reynaldo his notions of morality, and, as if from his own youthful experience, his low expectations of his son's moral conduct in the distant capital. The disclosure may seem surprising and even contradictory to the trait, characteristic of doting parents: blind and indulgent to the defects of their offspring, they are ever quick to credit any good, and slow to believe any evil of them. In his instruction to the spy, Polonius not only acts against this parental instinct, but, moreover, stoops to disreputable means in order to ferret. out the evil habits and inclinations which he supposes natural to his son. Reynaldo, the agent of the Danish government, is commissioned to visit Paris with the purpose of discovering what "Danskers," or Danes dwell there, by what means they live, what they spend, and what kind of company they keep. In particular, he is to mingle with the associates of Laertes, and learn from them the course of his life in Paris. These minute and superabundant instructions of Polonius exhibit his characteristic conceit. Loath to acknowledge any acumen or even common sense in his accredited agent, he proceeds laboriously to illumine Reynaldo in the futile cunning of his own diplomacy, and to initiate him in his boasted method of stealing upon the truth, as a sneak-thief, unawares. Reynaldo must claim some slight acquaintance with Laertes, and by innuendoes hint at his "wanton, wild, and usual slips as are common to youth and liberty;" such as drinking, swearing, quarelling, and drabbing. These, however, he must consider light, as the "taints of liberty, the outbreaks of a fiery mind, and the wildness of untamed blood." The character of Laertes being thus besmirched, his companions will readily admit his faults, his carousals, gambling, spendthrift ways, and other taints; and thus by cunning, by round-about ways, and by trials of his inclinations, Rey |