badinage and intermittent brilliant plays of irony and wit, in which all contestants appear as puppets in his hands; we watch in charm and admiration his perfect portrayal of the madman, and listen with fellow-feeling and wrapt interest to the revelation of the secrets of his heart. Turbulent impulses, often at war with conscience, impel him to sweep with ruthless hand the gamut of human passions, and we hear the chords vibrate, now with love or hatred, now with hope or despair. As in heart frozen with terror or softened to pity, he fluctuates between wonder and awe, between anguish and mental exaltation; as in mind keenly edged by preternatural visitings, he walks with the sole light of Christian principles, amid the deep shadows of an unexplored mysterious realm, we accompany him in religious reverence and apprehension on the border-land of another world. In some manner we feel identified with him throughout. His emotions and thoughts are our own. Forgetful of self, we become absorbed in his personality, as we see humanity in turn absorbed in him. In him, as in a mirror, each generation in the flight of time, has seen itself reflected, for the stage of action in this drama is the world of every age, and its hero, involved now in gloom and now in sunshine, and the varying moods of doubt and suffering, represents mankind. He is a grand philosopher of thought, whose pathetic figure, rare gifts of genius, refined Christian morals, nobleness of character and personal charm, have led the many to recognize in him the protagonist in our drama of human life. ACT FIRST SCENE FIRST WEIRD EXPECTANCY At the very opening of the drama, the Poet strikes the note which shall dominate the Play throughout. His usual practice, as seen in many of his dramas, is to foreshadow the action from the very start, and to acquaint his auditors with the situation of affairs. The Tragedy of Macbeth opens with a weird scene in a bleak desert, where evil spirits in human form premeditate an attack upon the soul of the leading character. The first scene in Richard III. reveals not only the course of the tragedy, but also sketches in brief the base qualities and villainous designs of the man who is to guide its action. But in no other drama has Shakespeare equalled in poetic grandeur the opening scene of Hamlet. In dreary watch beneath a wintry sky of twinkling stars, the lone sentinel, benumbed by the biting air of January, paces to and fro in the dead of night along the dark parapets of the castle of Elsinore. A sense of dread mystery and a fear of the reappearance of the ghost, blight his spirits and oppress him with heart-sickness and a melancholy loneliness. He pauses now and then in anxious restlessness, either to listen to the dismal voice of the sea as it roars against the rocky cliff below, or to count the solemn strokes of the weird midnight bell, or again in eagerness to catch the first footfall of the sentinel whom he expects to relieve him at any moment. The solemn scene and the gloomy thoughts and feelings of the sentinels aptly prepare the audience for the entrance of the preternatural visitor. Because of its unusual and mystifying nature, the preternatural always has a strong attraction for the multitude. Its influence was strong in the Poet's day, when the masses still adhered to the Christian doctrine of the supernatural. In modern times, however, the spirit of Materialism and Rationalism, arising from the dissolving faith of the Christian sects, has rejected, to a great extent, the supernatural for the natural. Nevertheless, even Rationalists and Positivists will, we shall see, find it difficult to resist the powerful appeal for faith in the preternatural, which Shakespeare makes throughout the First Act of the tragedy. The scene opens with a voice ringing out through the silent darkness of the night. It is the challenge of Bernardo. He feared lest the obscure form of the approaching sentinel were the ghost which he had seen on the previous night. The guard in turn startled and seized with fear, challenges Bernardo to stand and give the watch-word. Their conversation naturally turns upon the apparition, and Bernardo, fearing to meet the ghost in his solitary beat, urges the departing Francisco to hasten the arrival of Marcellus and Horatio. As the ghost is the prime element on which the tragedy depends, the Poet insists on bringing out its objective reality. He, therefore, labors to present to our senses such evidence as will convince a sane mind that the apparition is not imaginary or subjective, but a true and actually objective ghost. Hence, two soldiers, sturdy, courageous, and little given to imagination or to dreaming, encounter it together. Both, while on duty as sentinels, see "the dreaded sight" on two successive nights. They narrate their experience to Horatio, but find him utterly incredulous. In consequence, they challenge him to join them that very night and to verify for himself the truth of their story. After the midnight hour when all three are on the watch together, Horatio still professes incredulity, and declines to credit their reiterated story. A scholar |