spectators, and I saw in his attitude the well-known diagonal fold from the shoulder to the opposite hip, I for one was ready twice over to give up a sight of his countenance. In the inky cloak of which Hamlet speaks, I should not have seen what I then saw. An actor with a good physique (and such all actors should have who undertake this tragedy) always loses in a dress too far removed from that which to every one in life, earlier or later, is not the least of our wants and the sweetest satisfaction of youthful vanity, and in which the eye knows how to give the too much and too little to things not the breadth of a straw. Understand me, I am not saying that Cæsar and the Henries and Richards of England should appear on the stage in the uniform of the guard, with epaulettes and gorgets. To feel and resent these and similar departures from a universal custom, every one has got sufficient knowledge and antiquarian pride, got at school and from engravings, coins and stoveplates. I only mean that when the antiquarian still slumbers in the heads of the public in regard to a certain article, the actor ought not to be the first to awaken him. The little episodical pleasure, if I may so speak, which the poor pomp of a masquerade habit gives me does not atone for the injury which the piece suffers on the other side. The spectators all feel the injury, only they do not know the cause of it. But herein is the taste of a gifted actor, who knows the strength and the weakness of the eyes before which he appears. London is in the condition which I suppose, in relation to the Danish Hamlet, and is it necessary that Garrick should make them wiser at the cost of both parties? On the one hand, Garrick denied himself a little bit of reputation for learning, while on the other hearts by the thousand became his.

GOETHE (1795)

(Wilhelm Meister, Book v.)—[Carlyle's Trans.; slightly varied. Vol. i, p. 261, Boston, 1851.]

I sought for every indication of what the character of Hamlet was before the death of his father; I took note of all that this interesting youth had been, independently of that sad event, independently of the subsequent terrible occurrences, and I imagined what he might have been without them.

Tender and nobly descended, this royal flower grew up under the direct influences of majesty; the idea of the right and of princely dignity, the feeling for the good and the graceful, with the consciousness of his high birth, were unfolded in him together. He was a prince, a born prince. Pleasing in figure, polished by nature, courteous from the heart, he was to be the model of youth and the delight of the world.

Without any supreme passion, his love for Ophelia was a presentiment of sweet needs. His zeal for knightly exercises was not entirely his own, not altogether natural to him; it had rather to be quickened and inflamed by praise bestowed upon another. Pure in sentiment, he knew the honorable-minded, and could prize the repose which an upright spirit enjoys, resting on the frank bosom of a friend. To a certain degree he had learned to discern and value the good and the beautiful in arts and sciences; the vulgar was offensive to him; and if hatred could take root in his tender soul, it was only so far as to make him despise the false and fickle courtiers, and scornfully to play with them. He was calm in his temper, simple in his behaviour, neither content in idleness, nor yet too eager for employment. An academic routine he seemed to continue even at court. He possessed more mirth

of humor than of heart; he was a good companion, compliant, modest, discreet, and could forget and forgive an injury; yet never able to unite himself with one who overstept the limits of the right, the good, and the becoming.

[Page 294.] Figure to yourselves this youth, this son of princes, conceive him vividly, bring his condition before your eyes, and then observe him when he learns that his father's spirit walks; stand by him in the terrible night when the venerable Ghost itself appears before him. A horrid shudder seizes him; he speaks to the mysterious form; he sees it beckon him; he follows it and hearkens. The fearful accusation of his uncle rings in his ears; the summons to revenge and the piercing reiterated prayer: Remember me!'

And when the Ghost has vanished, whom is it we see standing before us? A young hero panting for vengeance? A born prince, feeling himself favored in being summoned to punish the usurper of his crown? No! Amazement and sorrow overwhelm the solitary young man; he becomes bitter against smiling villains, swears never to forget the departed, and concludes with the significant ejaculation: The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!'

In these words, I imagine, is the key to Hamlet's whole procedure, and to me it is clear that Shakespeare sought to depict a great deed laid upon a soul unequal to the performance of it. In this view, I find the piece composed throughout. Here is an oak tree planted in a costly vase, which should have received into its bosom only lovely flowers; the roots spread out, the vase is shivered to pieces.

A beautiful, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which makes the hero, sinks beneath a burden which it can neither bear nor throw off; every duty is holy to him,—this too hard. The impossible is required of him,— not the impossible in itself, but the impossible to him. How he winds, turns, agonizes, advances, and recoils, ever reminded, ever reminding himself, and at last almost loses his purpose from his thoughts, without ever again recovering his peace of mind.

[Page 296.] Of Ophelia there cannot much be said, for a few master-strokes complete her character. Her whole being floats in sweet, ripe passion. Her inclination to the prince, to whose hand she may aspire, flows so spontaneously, the good heart obeys its impulses so unresistingly, that both father and brother are in fear,—both warn her directly and harshly. Decorum, like the thin lawn upon her bosom, cannot hide the movement of her heart: it is rather the betrayer of this light movement. Her fancy is touched, her still modesty breathes an amiable longing, and should the accommodating goddess Opportunity shake the tree, the fruit would at once fall. And then, when she sees herself forsaken, cast off, and despised, when in the soul of her crazed lover the highest has changed to the lowest, and instead of the sweet cup of love, he offers her the bitter cup of woe, her heart breaks, the whole structure of her being is loosened from its joinings, her father's death breaks fiercely in, and the beautiful edifice falls into a ruin.

[Page 304.] It pleases, it flatters us greatly to see a hero who acts of himself, who loves and hates as his heart prompts, undertaking and executing, thrusting aside all hindrances, and accomplishing a great purpose. Historians and poets would fain persuade us that so proud a lot may fall to man. In Hamlet we are taught otherwise: the hero has no plan, but the piece is full of plan. Here is no villain upon whom vengeance is inflicted according to a certain scheme, rigidly and in a peculiar manner carried out. No, a horrid deed occurs; it sweeps on in its consequences, dragging the guiltless along with it; the perpetrator appears as if he would avoid

VOL. II.-18

the abyss to which he is destined, and he plunges in, just then when he thinks happily to fulfil his career. For it is the property of a deed of horror that the evil spreads itself out over the innocent, as it is of a good action to extend its benefits to the undeserving, while frequently the author of one or of the other is neither punished nor rewarded. Here in this play of ours, how strange! Purgatory sends its spirit and demands revenge; but in vain! All circumstances combine and hurry to revenge; in vain! Neither earthly nor infernal thing may bring about what is reserved for Fate alone. The hour of judgement comes. The bad falls with the good. One race is mowed away, and another springs up.

[Page 305.] Should not the poet have furnished Ophelia, the insane maiden, with another sort of songs? Could not one select out of melancholy ballads? What have double meanings and lascivious insipidities to do in the mouth of this noble maiden? In these singularities, in this apparent impropriety, there lies a deep sense. Do we not know from the very first what the mind of the good child was busy with? Silently she lived within herself, scarcely concealing, however, her longing, her wishes. Secretly the tones of desire were ringing in her soul, and how often may she have endeavored, like an unwise nurse, to sing her senses to sleep with songs which only kept them more wide awake? At last, when all command of herself is taken from her, when her heart hovers upon her tongue, her tongue turns traitress, and in the innocence of insanity she solaces herself, before king and queen, with the echo of beloved, loose songs.

[Page 353.] In the composition of this play, after the most exact investigation and the most mature reflection, I distinguish two classes of objects. The first are the grand internal relations of the persons and events, the powerful effects which arise from the characters and proceedings of the main figures; these, I hold, are severally excellent, and the order in which they are presented cannot be improved. Through no kind of treatment can they be destroyed or essentially changed in form. These are the things which stamp themselves deep in the soul, which every one desires to see, which no one ventures to meddle with, and which, I hear, have been almost all retained upon the German stage. But our countrymen have erred, in my opinion, with regard to the second class of objects, which are observable in this piece; I allude to the external relations of the persons, whereby they are taken from one place to another, or connected together in one way or another, by certain accidental incidents; they have been regarded as quite unimportant, have been mentioned only in passing, or left out altogether. It is true these threads are slender and loose, yet they run through the whole piece, and hold together what otherwise would fall apart and does actually fall apart when you cut them away, and think you have done enough in leaving the ends hanging.

Among these external relations I include the disturbances in Norway, the war with young Fortinbras, the embassy to his old uncle, the settling of that feud, the march of young Fortinbras to Poland and his coming back at the end; of the same sort are Horatio's return from Wittenberg, Hamlet's wish to go thither, the journey of Laertes to France, his return, the despatch of Hamlet into England, his capture by pirates, the death of the two courtiers by the letter which they carried. All these circumstances and events would be very fit for expanding a novel, but they injure exceedingly the unity of the piece, especially as the hero has no plan, and are extremely faulty. These errors are like temporary props of an edifice; they must not be removed till we have built a firm wall in their stead.

[Page 357. To the suggestion that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern might be com

pressed into one, Goethe replies:] What these two persons are and do, it is impossible to represent by one. In such small matters we discover Shakespeare's greatness. This lightly stepping approach, this smirking and bowing, this assenting, wheedling, flattering, this whisking agility, this wagging of the tail, this allness and emptiness, this legal knavery, this ineptitude and insipidity,-how can they be expressed by a single man? There ought to be a dozen of these people, if they could be had; for it is only in society that they are anything: they are society itself; and Shakespeare showed no little wisdom and discernment in bringing in a pair of them. Besides, they are needed as a couple that may be contrasted with the single, noble, excellent Horatio.

[Page 361.] Shakespeare introduced the travelling players with a double purpose. The player who recites the death of Priam with such feeling, in the first place, makes a deep impression on the prince himself; he sharpens the conscience of the wavering youth; and accordingly the scene becomes a prelude to that other, where, in the second place, the little play produces such effect upon the king. Hamlet sees himself reproved and put to shame by the player, who feels so deep a sympathy in foreign and fictitious woes; and the thought of making an experiment upon the conscience of his stepfather is in consequence suggested to him. What a royal monologue is that which ends the second act: O what a rogue and peasant slave am I' &c.

[Page 364.] The repose and security of this old gentleman [Polonius], his emptiness and his significance, his exterior agreeableness and his essential tastelessness, his freedom and his sycophancy, his sincere roguery and pretended truth, should be represented in due elegance and proportions. This genuine, gray-haired, enduring, time-serving half knave should be shown in the most courtly style, which will be greatly helped by our author's somewhat coarse and rough strokes. He should speak like a book when prepared beforehand, and like a fool when in good humor,insipid in order to chime in with every one, and always so conceited as not to observe when people are laughing at him.

[Page 365.] Although it is not especially expressed, but by comparison of passages I think it incontestable that Hamlet, as a Dane, as a Northman, is fair-haired and blue-eyed. The fencing tires him; the sweat is running from his brow; and the Queen remarks: 'He's fat and scant of breath.' Can you conceive him to be otherwise than plump and fair-haired? Brown-complexioned people, in their youth, are seldom plump. And does not his wavering melancholy, his soft lamenting, his irresolute activity, accord with such a figure? From a dark-haired young man one would look for more decision and impetuosity.

[Page 367.] Hamlet is endowed more properly with sentiment than with a character; it is events alone that push him on; and accordingly the piece has somewhat the amplification of a novel. But as it is Fate that draws the plan, as the piece proceeds from a deed of terror, and the hero is steadily driven on to a deed of terror, the work is tragic in the highest sense, and admits of no other than a tragic end.

CHRISTIAN GARVE (1796)

(Ueber die Rollen der Wahnwitzigen in Shakespeares Schauspielen, &c., in Versuche, &c. Breslau, 1796, vol. ii, p. 433.)-In this thoughtful essay the author discusses the reason why Shakespeare is so fond of introducing in his dramas characters who

are either mad or touched in their wits. This he finds arises from two causes; first: Shakespeare liked to deal, like Michael Angelo, in grand effects that verge on the monstrous; the passions he depicts are always in extreme: Lear's rage, Othello's jealousy, Macbeth's ambition, Hamlet's thirst for revenge, &c.; thus the way is prepared for a very gradual, almost imperceptible, lapse from sanity to insanity, and expressions that would be deemed exaggerated and unnatural become eminently befitting when uttered under such conditions. Secondly: Shakespeare gained, in depicting madmen and fools, this great advantage, that he could put into their mouths his own philosophy, clad in an elevated and poetic garb. A man of sound understanding keeps back much of what he thinks, and utters no more than will serve the occasion, moderating his fancy and eschewing poetic flights. The insane man, on the contrary, loses himself in his ideas; he is always as though he were alone and talking with himself. His fancy is always on the alert, and he speaks in pictures. His speeches are a series of riddles, from which we can decipher more of the circumstances of his life than the mere words alone would give. Hence it is that when we discern the signs of truth or observation in such a character, it makes a deeper impression. The wise remarks of a fool are like lightning in the collied night. Thus it is that Shakespeare, the greatest philosophical poet that ever lived, and in whose philosophy is found the greatest originality, delights in portraying characters that hover betwixt sanity and insanity.

Too much use, however, must not be made, in a single play, of this effect, produced by insanity. Two insane characters, like Hamlet and Ophelia, would be inadmis. sible where the circle of dramatis personæ is so small. Now we know that Ophelia was certainly insane; Hamlet therefore was not. Moreover, when insanity is introduced in a tragedy, there must always be given a sufficient cause therefor, either in the past or the present. In Hamlet's case no sufficient cause is given.

There can be no question that the source from which Shakespeare drew his plot represented Hamlet as feigning insanity; and there can be no doubt that Hamlet feigns insanity in the present play. At the same time it is equally undoubted that he speaks and conducts himself on several occasions as he alone would, whose mind was already more or less shattered: for instance, in the first monologue, where he dwells on suicide; again, in his behavior to Ophelia, in III, i, &c.

Garve asserts that a man really insane cannot feign insanity; to assume insanity as a mask demands complete presence of mind and a high degree of mastery over one's self. When, therefore, sanity and insanity are mingled in Hamlet's case, I cannot avoid the conclusion that there is a departure from nature and truth.'

HERDER (1800)

(Literatur und Kunst, 12.*)—After learning the cause of his father's death, why does not Hamlet instantly go and murder the murderer? He is not wanting in will, and certainly not in strength, as his thrust at Polonius, his fight with Laertes, and his soliloquies show. But his killing the king would have served neither the poet nor his tragedy, which is to lead us into the very soul of Hamlet; for from the moral nature and the opinions of a man springs his character.

Hamlet is as tender as he is reflective: from Wittenberg he comes home a scholar.

* For this extract from HERDER I am indebted to HACKн, page xxiv of the Preface to his transla. tion of Hamlet. ED.