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have arisen, whose difficulties lie in their spleen' (Hermann Grimm), their 'temperament' (Gessner), or their 'sluggish blood' (Loening); or in the restraints imposed by external sanctions of law and politics. If modern psychology lives in Loening's 'lazy Hamlet,' the political Teuton of to-day is reflected in Werder's scornful 'dismissal' of the dreamer Hamlet to limbo in company with the dreaming Germany of which Freytag proclaimed him the type. Finally, to the 'realistic' eyes of our time Hamlet has become a veiled allusion, and his spiritual profile an ineffectual disguise, for Essex,1 Montaigne, or James the First.

1 This is the contention of Hermann Conrad in a series of elaborate articles recently re

printed in his Shakspere's Selbstbekenntnisse, 1897.

HAMLET,

PRINCE OF DENMARK.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the

castle.

FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO.

Ber. Who's there?

Fran. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

Ber. Long live the king!

Fran. Bernardo ?

Ber. He.

Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour.
Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed,
Francisco.

Fran. For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter

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The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. Fran. I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there ?

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

Hor. Friends to this ground.
Mar.

And liegemen to the Dane.

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Ber. Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Mar

cellus.

Mar. What, has this thing appeared again tonight?

Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy

And will not let belief take hold of him

Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us :
Therefore I have entreated him along

With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That if again this apparition come,

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Sit down awhile; 30

He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
Hor. Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
Ber.
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story
What we have two nights seen.
Hor.

Well, sit we down,

13. rivals, partners.

29. approve, confirm the evidence of.

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

Ber. Last night of all,

When yond same star that's westward from the
pole

Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one,-

Enter Ghost.

Mar. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

Mar. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it,
Horatio.

Hor. Most like it harrows me with fear and
wonder.

Ber. It would be spoke to.

Mar.

Question it, Horatio.

Hor. What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

Mar. It is offended.

Ber.

See, it stalks away !

[Exit Ghost.

Hor. Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Ber. How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:

Is not this something more than fantasy?

42. a scholar, i.e. one.

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40

What think you on't?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Mar.

Is it not like the king?

Hor. As thou art to thyself:

Such was the very armour he had on

When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded pole-axe on the ice.

'Tis strange.

Mar. Thus twice before; and jump at this dead
hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
Hor. In what particular thought to work I
know not;

But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that
knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land,
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,

57. avouch, warrant. 62. parle, parley.

63. the sledded pole-axe, the 'pole-axe weighted with a sledge or hammer at the back.' Malone proposed Polacks,' i.e. the Poles in their sledges; which many editors adopt. But there is little doubt that, as the advocates of 'pole-axe' urge, the tenor of the description suggests a momentary outburst of fury rather than a prolonged fight. The chief difficulty in this view is the word 'sledded.' 'Sled' is a dialectic and archaic

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