ページの画像
PDF
ePub

Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another; you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance: Go to, I'll no more of 't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they [Exit HAMLET.

are. To a nunnery, go.

Oph. O, what a noble mind is here

o'erthrown!

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword:

The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion, and the mould of

form,

The observ'd of all observers: quite, quite down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck'd the honey of his music vows, Now see that noble and most sovereign

reason,

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and ⚫harsh;

That unmatch'd form and feature of
blown youth,
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me!
To have seen what I have seen, see what
I see!"

that from which in the meekness of thy lamenting sorrow thou behold'st "that noble and most sovereign reason" fall like a star from its sphere! But hear another speak, who always speaks well:

:

Shakspeare and Mrs Jameson were right. Ophelia herself knew that Hamlet loved her;-and Hamlet knew that Ophelia knew that he loved her, and therefore he used her thus; for no behaviour of his, he was well assured, could ever make his "soul's idol" "doubt he loved." That doubt would have broken her heart. But Hamlet wished not to break Ophelia's heart, whatever else he may have wished; and what he wished is" hard to be scanned." Ophelia by all this seeming harsh usage, (Oh, most harsh!) feels not herself ill-used; no word of upbraiding escapes her lips; all she feels is -pity! She is "of ladies most deject and wretched;" but not because no more she "sucks the honey of his music vows;" but to see " Oh! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!" And never was wreck of mind so sublimely painted in words as by her, the simple of heart! when at last she exclaims, "O, woe is me!" The woe is "to have seen what I have seen! see what I see!" O sinless being! uplifted by thy self-forgetting innocence to a loftier height of humanity even than

"We do not see him as a lover, nor as Ophelia first beheld him; for the days before the opening of the drama-before when he importuned her with love were his father's spirit revisited the earth; but we behold him at once in a sea of trou

bles, of perplexities, of agonies, of terrors. A loathing of the crime he is called on to revenge, which revenge is again abhorrent to his nature, have set him at strife with himself; the supernatural visitation has perturbed his soul to its inmost depths; all things else, all interests, all hopes, all affections, appear as futile, when the majestic shadow comes lamenting from its place of torment to shake him with thoughts beyond the reaches of his soul!' His love for Ophelia is then ranked by himself among those trivial, fond records which he has deeply sworn to erase from his heart and brain. He has no thought to link his terrible destiny with hers; he cannot marry her; he cannot reveal to her, young, gentle, innocent as she is, the terrific influences which have changed the whole current of his life and purposes. In his distraction, he overacts the painful part to which he had tasked himself; he is like that judge of the Areopagus, who, being occupied with graver matters, flung from him the little bird which

had sought refuge in his bosom, and that with such angry violence, that unwittingly he killed it.

"In the scene with Hamlet, in which he madly outrages her and upbraids himself, Ophelia says very little; there are two short sentences in which she replies to his wild, abrupt discourse

Ham. I did love you once.

Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Ham. You should not have believed me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we

shall relish of it. I loved you not.

Oph. I was the more

"Those who ever heard Mrs Siddons read the play of Hamlet, cannot forget the world of meaning, of love, of sorrow, of despair, conveyed in these two simple phrases. Here, and in the soliloquy afterwards, where she says

And I of ladies most deject and wretched, That sucked the honey of his music vows,' are the only allusions to herself and her own feelings in the course of the play; and these, uttered almost without consciousness on her own part, contain the revelation of a life of love, and disclose the secret burden of a heart bursting with its own unuttered grief. She believes Ham

let crazed: she is repulsed, she is forsaken, she is outraged, where she had bestowed her young heart, with all its hopes and wishes; her father is slain by the hand of her lover, as it is supposed, in a paroxysm of insanity; she is entangled inextricably in a web of horrors which she cannot even comprehend, and the result seems inevitable."

Ophelia would have forgiven Hamlet every thing, but it seems she had nothing to forgive. Therefore at the Play we can imagine her again happy, since Hamlet seems to his sweet senses restored.

"Hamlet. Lady! Shall I lie in your lap?
(Lying down at OPHELIA's feet.)
Ophelia. No, my lord.
Hamlet. I mean my head upon your
lap.

Ophelia. Aye, my lord."

We must not find fault with Hamlet's wit throughout this scene, for though Ophelia could not choose but wonder, yet she was not critical ou what she did not more than half-understand; and though her Hamlet might seem to her to speak strangely, he was not the Hamlet who frightened her when "sewing in her closet," the Hamlet for whom she cried, "O woe is me!" in the room in the castle. Half-glad and half-sad was she now to be able to say, "You are merry, my lord."

[blocks in formation]

Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures, yield them,

Indeed would make one think, there might be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhap

pily.

After that night we see Ophelia in her right wits never again. It was well for Hamlet that the slayer

of her father saw her not in the state
to which that slaughter, and other
causes connected with him, had re-
duced her; for surely he had then
been more dismally deranged by
such image, than even by his father's
ghost. That, revisiting the glimpses
of the moon, made night hideous;
this would indeed have darkened the
sunlight, or rather made the ceru-
lean vault of Heaven lurid as the dun
cope of Hell. Would he then, to
use the palliating language of Mrs
Jameson," have ranked his love for
Ophelia among those trivial fond re-
cords which he has deeply sworn to
erase from his heart and brain?"
Alas! methinks to drive one's young
true love mad by wild words and
rash deeds, though not so wicked,
was more lamentable than to pour
the juice of cursed hellebore from
a phial into the ear of an old sleep-
ing king! But we are relapsing into O, ho!

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CCV.

Queen. 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding

minds:

Let her come in.

[Exit HORATIO. To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to some great

amiss:

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Re-enter HORATIO with OPHELIA. Oph. Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

Queen. How now, Ophelia?
Oph. How should I your true love
know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon. [Singing.
Queen. Alas, sweet lady, what imports
this song?

Oph. Say you? nay, pray you, mark.
He is dead and gone, lady, [Sings.
He is dead and gone;

At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.

2 D

[blocks in formation]

He answers.

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed. King. How long hath she been thus? Oph. I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i'the cold ground: My brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night. [Exit."

"Laer. How now! what noise is that? Enter OPHELIA, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,

Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!

By heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight,

Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of
May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia !

[blocks in formation]

Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember; and there is pansies, that's for thoughts. Laer. A document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines :-there's rue for you; and here's some for me:-we may call it, herb of grace o' Sundays:-you may wear your rue with a difference.-There's a daisy: -I would give you some violets; but they withered all, when my father died:

-They say, he made a good end,——— For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy,[Sings. Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself.

She turns to favour, and to prettiness.
Sings.

Oph. And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead,
Go to thy death-bed,

He never will come again.

[ocr errors]

His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan; God 'a mercy on his soul ! And of all Christian souls! I pray God. God be wi' you! [Exit OPHELIA. Laer. Do you see this, O God?" No hint had been given of what had happened to Ophelia. Perhaps there were none to take notice of the change that came gradually upon her

perhaps in one hour or less, she became insane. Her father had been killed by Hamlet; and Hamlet was moralizing far off on the "imminent death of twenty thousand men,"

"Her brother had in secret come from France," but "kept himself in clouds," and knew nothing of his sister till he cried "How now! what noise is that?" The weak and wicked queen, though she may have looked "with a kind of melancholy complacency on the lovely being she had destined for the bride of her son," was but heedless of her weal or woe, and at the beginning of this sad scene says "I will not speak with her;' and then-" 'twere good she were spoken with; for she may sow dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds." That " cut-purse of the empire," who fears the babbling of her insanity, had not heart even to like Ophelia, when "sewing in her closet.' Neglected had she been by one and all-all but Horatio, that noble soul of unpretending worth, and he knew not what ailed her till she was past all cure. He it is who feelingly, and poetically, and truly describes the maniac; he it is who brings her in; he it is who follows her away dumb all the while! And who with right souls but must have been speechless amidst these gentle ravings? The adulterous and incestuous only it is that speak. "How now, Ophelia ?" "Nay! but Ophelia," so minceth the queen. "How do you, pretty lady?" "Pretty Ophelia!" So stuttereth the king. Faugh! the noisome and loathsome hypocrites! So that her poor lips were but mute, both would have fain seen them sealed up with the blue mould of the grave! But Laertes-he with all his faults and sins has a noble heart -his words are pathetic or passionate

"Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, She turns to favour, and to prettiness." "Do you see this, O God?" Horatio says, "her speech is nothing." It is nearly nothing. But the snatches of old songs, they are something-as they come flowing in music from their once hushed resting-places far within her memory, which they had entered in her days of careless childhood, and they have a meaning now that gives them doleful utterance. It is Hamlet who is the Maniac's Valentine. "You are merry, my lord," is all she said to him as he lay with his head on her

lap at the play. She would have died, rather than sing to Hamlet that night the songs she sings now-yet she had not sung them now, had she not been crazed with love!" Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark ?" She must mean Hamlet,

"He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone ;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone."

Means she her father? Perhaps-but bable. Mayhap but the dead man of most likely not. Hamlet? It is prothe song. Enough that it is of death, and burial. Or to that verse, as haply to others too, she may attach no meaning at all. A sad key once struck, the melancholy dirge may flow on of itself, Memory and Consciousness accompanying not one another in her insanity!" They say, the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table." The King says, terous beast! it was no conceit on "conceit upon her father." Adulher father. The words refer to an old story often related to children to deter them from illiberal behaviour to poor people. Our Saviour for bread to eat-the baker's daughwent into a baker's shop, and asked ter cried, "heugh! heugh! heugh!" which owl-like noise made our Saviour, for her wickedness, transform her into that bird. learnt the story in the nursery, and Ophelia had she who was always charitable thinks of it now-God only knows whyand Shakspeare, who had heard such dim humanities from the living lips of the deranged-as many have done who are no Shakspeares―gave them utterance from the lips of the sweetest phantom that ever wailed her woes in hearing of a poet's brain. "The mildewed ear who blasted his wholesome brother," shews his vulgar stupidity by asking considerately, "How long hath she been thus ?" But Ophelia's soul is deaf to all outward sounds-all but her own sweet voice! And now she does indeed think for a moment, and but a moment, of her father, and nobody else. "I cannot choose but weep to think they should lay him i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it." She has forgot that Hamlet killed him-for had she thought of

that, she would not have told Laertes. The darker clouds vanish-and Ophelia, who, when in her senses, cared nought about coaches, is pleased, when out of them, with this world's poor vanities! and gaily bids good night to a bevy of court ladies! Horatio was a wise keeper of the insane. He did not seek to restrain her in her harmless fancies. So Ophelia re-appears, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.

"O rose of May!

Dear maid! kind sister! sweet Ophelia!"

[ocr errors]

66

She is somewhat more composed -perhaps by that act of wild adornment. She is conscious of presences; and it may be that there is something fitting in her floral gifts-her floral emblems. "There's rue for you, [the Queen,] and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays," contains a world of woe! You, madam," says Ophelia to the Queen, may call your rue by its Sunday name, 'herb of grace,' and so wear it with a difference, to distinguish it from mine, which can never be any thing but merely rue— that is-sorrow." Well said, STEE"I would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father died." She is sorry for the violets. They are not worth giving away-but they are worth keeping and she will keep them, though she soon forgets for what they withered, for now 66 Bonny sweet Robin is all my joy." Hamlet once more-but for a moment; and she who was so strong in filial piety, again chants about her father, and sees the common conclusion of monumental inscriptions-" And of all Christian souls, I pray God!-God be wi' you!"

VENS.

Ophelia is insane. Her sweet mind lies in fragments before us-a pitiful spectacle! Her wild, rambling fancies; her aimless, broken speeches; her quick transitions from gaiety to sadness-each equally purposeless and causeless; her snatches of old ballads, such as perhaps her nurse sang her to sleep with in her infancy-are all so true to the life, that we forget to wonder, and can only weep. It belonged to Shakspeare alone so to temper such a picture that we can endure to dwell upon it

[blocks in formation]

Therewith fantastic garlands did she
make
crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and
long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser

Of

name,

But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them :

"Of her subsequent madness what can be said? What an astonishingwhat an affecting picture of a mind utterly, hopelessly wrecked!-past hopepast cure! There is the frenzy of excited passion-there is the madness caused by intense and continued thought -there is the delirium of fevered nerves; but Ophelia's madness is distinct from these it is not the suspension, but the utter destruction of the reasoning powers: it is the total imbecility which, as medical people well know, too frequently follows some terrible shock to the spirits. Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes Constance is frantic; Lear is mad; spread wide;

There on the pendant boughs her coro-
net weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver
broke ;
When down her weedy trophies, and her-
self,

« 前へ次へ »