Ham. A little more then kin, and lesse then
kinde.1

King. How is it that the Clouds still hang on

you?

Ham. Not so my Lord, I am too much i'th'Sun.2
Queen. Good Hamlet cast thy nightly colour
off,4

And let thine eye looke like a Friend on Denmarke.
Do not for euer with thy veyled lids

Seeke for thy Noble Father in the dust;

Thou know'st 'tis common, all that liues must dye,
Passing through Nature, to Eternity.

Ham. I Madam, it is common.6

Queen. If it be;

Why seemes it so particular with thee.

Ham. Seemes Madam? Nay, it is: I know not
Seemes: 7

'Tis not alone my Inky Cloake (good Mother)
Nor Customary suites of solemne Blacke,

Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitfull Riuer in the Eye,
Nor the deiected hauiour of the Visage,
Together with all Formes, Moods, shewes of Griefe,
That can denote me truly. These indeed Seeme,9
For they are actions that a man might 10 play :
But I haue that Within, which passeth show;
These, but the Trappings, and the Suites of woe.
King. 'Tis sweet and commendable

In your Nature Hamlet,

11

To giue these mourning duties to your Father: "1
But you must know, your Father lost a Father,
That Father lost, lost his, and the Suruiuer bound
In filiall Obligation, for some terme

To do obsequious 12 Sorrow. But to perseuer

In obstinate Condolement, is a course

1 An aside.

Hamlet's first utterance is of dislike to his uncle. He is more than kin through his unwelcome marriage-less than kind by the difference in their natures. To be kind is to behave as one kinned or related. But the word here is the noun, and means nature, or sort by birth.

2 A word-play may be here intended between sun and son: a little more than kin-too much i th' Son. So George Herbert :

and Dr. Donne :

For when he sees my ways, I die;
But I have got his Son, and he hath none;

at my death thy Son

Shall shine, as he shines now and heretofore.

3 'Wintred garments'—As You Like It, iii. 2.

4 He is the only one who has not for the wedding put off his mourning. 5 lowered, or cast down: Fr. avaler, to lower.

6 ‘Plainly you treat it as a common matter—a thing of no significance !' I is constantly used for ay, yes.

7 He pounces on the word seems.

8 Not unfrequently the type would appear to have been set up from dictation.

9 They are things of the outside, and must seem, for they are capable of being imitated; they are the natural shows of grief. But he has that in him which cannot show or seem, because nothing can represent it. These are 'the Trappings and the Suites of woe;' they fitly represent woe, but they cannot shadow forth that which is within him--a something different from woe, far beyond it and worse, passing all reach of embodiment and manifestation. What this something is, comes out the moment he is left by himself.

10 The emphasis is on might.

11 Both his uncle and his mother decline to understand him. They will have it he mourns the death of his father, though they must at least suspect another cause for his grief. Note the intellectual mastery of the hypocrite-which accounts for his success.

12 belonging to obsequies

Of impious stubbornnesse. 'Tis vnmanly greefe,
It shewes a will most incorrect to Heauen,
A Heart vnfortified, a Minde impatient,
An Vnderstanding simple, and vnschool'd:
For, what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sence,
Why should we in our peeuish Opposition
Take it to heart? Fye, 'tis a fault to Heauen,
A fault against the Dead, a fault to Nature,
To Reason most absurd, whose common Theame
Is death of Fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first Coarse,1 till he that dyed to day,
This must be so. We pray you throw to earth
This vnpreuayling woe, and thinke of vs

As of a Father; For let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our Throne,2
And with no lesse Nobility of Loue,

Then that which deerest Father beares his Sonne,

Do I impart towards you. For your intent 18 In going backe to Schoole in Wittenberg,3

It is most retrograde to our desire :

And we beseech you, bend you to remaine
Heere in the cheere and comfort of our eye,
Our cheefest Courtier Cosin, and our Sonne.

or minde

course

toward

retrogard

Qu. Let not thy Mother lose her Prayers loose
Hamlet:

I prythee stay with vs, go not to Wittenberg.

Ham. I shall in all my best

Obey you Madam.^

King. Why 'tis a louing, and a faire Reply,
Be as our selfe in Denmarke. Madam come,
This gentle and vnforc'd accord of Hamlet"
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No iocond health that Denmarke drinkes to day,
44 But the great Cannon to the Clowds shall tell,

pray thee

1 Corpse

2 —seeking to propitiate him with the hope that his succession had been but postponed by his uncle's election.

3 Note that Hamlet was educated in Germany-at Wittenberg, the university where in 1508 Luther was appointed professor of Philosophy. Compare 19. There was love of study as well as disgust with home in his desire to return to Schoole: this from what we know of him afterwards.

4

Emphasis on obey. A light on the character of Hamlet.

5 He takes it, or pretends to take it, for far more than it was. desires friendly relations with Hamlet.

He

And the Kings Rouce,' the Heauens shall bruite

againe,

Respeaking earthly Thunder. Come away.

Manet Hamlet.

Exeunt Florish.

Exeunt all but Hamlet.

2 Ham. Oh that this too too solid Flesh, would sallied flesh 3

melt,

Thaw, and resolue it selfe into a Dew:

125,247, Or that the Euerlasting had not fixt

260

His Cannon 'gainst Selfe-slaughter. O God, O seale slaughter,

God!

How weary, stale, flat, and vnprofitable

Seemes to me all the vses of this world?

Fie on't? Oh fie, fie, 'tis an vnweeded Garden
That growes to Seed: Things rank, and grosse in

Nature

Possesse it meerely. That it should come to this:
But two months dead: Nay, not so much; not

two,

So excellent a King, that was to this
Hiperion to a Satyre: so louing to my Mother,
That he might not beteene the windes of heauen
Visit her face too roughly. Heauen and Earth
Must I remember: why she would hang on him,
As if encrease of Appetite had growne

By what it fed on; and yet within a month?
Let me not thinke on't: Frailty, thy name is
woman.6

A little Month, or ere those shooes were old,
With which she followed my poore Fathers body
Like Niobe, all teares. Why she, euen she.7

8

↑ God, God,

wary

seeme

ah fie,

meerely that it thus

should come

beteeme 5

should

(O Heauen! A beast that wants discourse of O God,

Reason

Would haue mourn'd longer) married with mine my

Vnkle,