Table of ContentsPrevious PageNext Page

Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth.
2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 1905.
PAGE 149
HAMLET

habit with him. Here are some more instances: 'Thrift, thrift, Horatio'; 'Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me'; 'Come, deal justly with me: come, come'; 'Wormwood, wormwood!' I do not profess to have made an exhaustive search, but I am much mistaken if this habit is to be found in any other serious character of Shakespeare.1

     And, in the second place -- and here I appeal with confidence to lovers of Hamlet -- some of these repetitions strike us as intensely characteristic. Some even of those already quoted strike one thus, and still more do the following:

(a) Horatio.  It would have much amazed you.
    Hamlet.  Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?

(b) Polonius.  What do you read, my lord?
    Hamlet.  Words, words, words.

(c) Polonius.  My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.
    Hamlet.  You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.

(d) Ophelia.                         Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
    Hamlet.  I humbly thank you, well, well, well.

     Is there anything that Hamlet says or does in the whole play more unmistakably individual than these replies? 2

     (2) Hamlet, everyone has noticed is fond of quibbles and word-play, and of 'conceits' and turns of thought such as are common in the poets whom Johnson called Metaphysical. Sometimes, no doubt, he plays with words and ideas chiefly

   1It should be observed also that many of Hamlet's repetitions can hardly be said to occur at moments of great emotion, like Cordelia's 'And so l am, I am,' and 'No cause, no cause.'
  Of course, a habit of repetition quite as marked as Hamlet's may be found in comic persons, e.g. Justice Shallow in 2 Henry IV.
   2Perhaps it is from noticing this trait that I find something characteristic too in this coincidence of phrase: 'Alas, poor ghost!' (I. v. 4). 'Alas, poor Yorick!' (V. i. 202).

Table of ContentsPrevious PageNext Page