HAMLET IN GERMANY. I have thought it best, under the above heading, to treat a question which concerns both the Literary and Stage History of Hamlet. In his interesting work, Shakespeare in Germany, published in 1864, Mr. Cohn says: "About the year 1665, this piece was performed by the Veltheim company, but it is of a much older date than this, for we find it in the Dresden Stage-library in 1626, and even then it was no new piece, as there is every reason to believe that it had been brought to Germany by the English players as early as 1603" (part i. p. cxx). In part ii. (pp. 241– 304 inclusive) he gives the German text and an English translation, side by side, of this tragedy, the full title of which is "Fratricide Punished, or Prince Hamlet of Denmark." The German text given Mr. Cohn describes as a "late and modernized copy of a much older manuscript." The copy bears the date Pretz, den 27. Oktober 1710"; it is entitled TRAGOEDIA. Der beftrafte Brudermord oder: Prinz Hamlet aus Dännemark (Tragedy. Fratricide Punished, or Prince Hamlet of Denmark), and appears to have been first published, in its entirety, in 1781, "in the German periodical Olla Potrida" (sic). It commences with a short Prologue, the speakers in which are Nacht (Night), and the Three Furies, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Magara. This Prologue is in verse, with the exception of one long prose speech of Night; and it is the only portion of the play which contains anything which can pretend to the title of poetry. The tragedy itself is a wretchedly dreary composition, written en 66 tirely in prose, with the exception of one or two rhyming couplets at the end of scenes, and is remarkable for having every vestige not only of the poetry, but of the dramatic vigour of Shakespeare's play, carefully eliminated. In fact it bears about as much relation to the Tragedy of Hamlet- -as we know it from the Second Quarto (1604), or the Folio, or even in the mutilated version of the Quarto of 1603-as one of Kirkman's Drolls does to the play on which it was professedly founded, whether the work of Shakespeare or of any contemporary author. Of Hamlet's wonderful soliloquies not a line remains; and even where the story does follow that of Shakespeare's tragedy, the scenes are so arranged as to destroy entirely the dramatic construction of the original. In short it is such a contemptible production, that any student or admirer of Shakespeare may be excused if he finds himself unable, from want of patience, to read the whole of it. I have been through it carefully myself, line by line, and, after making allowances for the extensive modernization the printed version may have undergone, it is impossible to believe that it represents, however remotely, any version of Hamlet written by Shakespeare. Mr. Cohn says (part i. p. cxxi): "Single passages in the German piece shew that an edition of the original must have been used which contained passages that are in the folio, but not in the first quarto, while other passages prove incontrovertibly that precisely this quarto must have been the source employed by the translator. Thus, for instance, the Ghost says to Hamlet, 'Mark me, Hamlet, for the time draws near when I must return to whence I came,' and concludes his speech with the words 'Thus was I robbed of kingdom, wife and life by this foul tyrant.' The former is evidently taken from the words which the Ghost uses in our accepted text of Hamlet: My hour is almost come, while the latter corresponds exactly to the order in which the Ghost mentions the same things in the original, Thus was I sleeping by a brother's hand Of Crowne, of Queene, of life, of dignitie At once deprived,' etc." But I cannot really see anything in the text of the German piece to justify these statements of Mr. Cohn. That the author, whoever he was, had seen or read Shakespeare's Hamlet, as we have it in the Folio or the Quarto of 1604, is most probable, if not certain; also that he must have had access to some copy of the Quarto of 1603, which edition, it will be remembered, was not then known to any of the English commentators of the 18th century. This, in itself, is a very interesting fact, for we may venture to infer from this that this Quarto of 1603, or something like it, had been represented on the stage in Germany, whether in English or in a German translation we have no evidence to show. On the other hand, that there are passages in the German play, which, to quote Mr. Cohn, "prove incontrovertibly that precisely this quarto must have been the source employed by the translator," I cannot see. If we found in the German version that the peculiar sequence of the scenes, for instance, in the Quarto of 1603, was followed rather than that of the Folio or the Quarto of 1604; or if there were any parallels to the one scene peculiar to the Quarto of 1603, the scene between Horatio and the Queen (see Shakspere Quarto Facsimile of Hamlet, scene xiv. p. 53), Mr. Cohn's statement, quoted above, might be justifiable; but we find no such thing. On the other hand there seems to me no internal evidence that the author of the German piece, "Fratricide Punished," &c., need have used the Quarto of 1603 at all. He could have obtained the wretchedly bald skeleton of Hamlet, which he has dressed up in dull and shabby prose, from the Folio, or from the Quarto of 1604. Bald, and corrupt in many passages the Quarto of 1603 undoubtedly is; but it does contain the germs of three of the finest soliloquies, and many passages of beautiful poetry, all of which the German adapter succeeded in eliminating; so that it really could be only a trifle to him to have got rid of the additional poetry, and of the finer passages first given in the Quarto of 1604. The only absolute point of resemblance between the German play and the Quarto of 1603 is that Polonius in the former is called Corambus, and in the latter Corambis; but there is no resemblance in the names of the other characters; for instance Laertes, who is called in Q. 1 Leartes, in the German play is Leonhardus; Claudius is called Erico, apparently a modified form of Eric; the Queen is called Sigrie; while Hamlet, Horatio, and Ophelia (not Ofelia as in the Quarto of 1603), and Francisco are found both in the German play and in the Quarto of 1604. In the first scene of the German play the Two Sentinels, as in the Quarto of 1603, are simply First and Second Sentinel; but the name Barnardo, which occurs in the Quarto of 1603, does not occur in the German play. Of new characters introduced into the latter we have Phantasmo the Clown, who takes the place of Osric in the last act, and who is a most abominable excrescence in the other scenes, principally the mad scenes of Ophelia, in which he appears. There is also Jens a Peasant, an unimportant character, who appears only in a short scene in the third act. The Principal of the Comedians is called Carl. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do not appear; but "Two Ruffians" are introduced in their place, who accompany Hamlet on his voyage to England by the King's orders; they attempt, in a ridiculous scene in the fourth act, to shoot Hamlet. From a careful examination of the German text I can only discover one passage which could hardly have been written, unless the author had seen either the Quarto of 1604 or the Folio, and that is in act i. scene 7 of the German piece, which commences with the speech corresponding to that of the King in Shakespeare's play: Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death. -Act i. sc. 2. In the German version the beginning of that speech is thus rendered: “Obschon unsers Herrn Bruders Tod noch in frischem Gedächtniss bey jedermann ist, und uns gebietet, alle Solennitäten einzustellen, werden wir doch anjetzo genöthiget, unsere schwarze Trauerkleider in Carmosin, Purpur und Scharlach zu verändern." The English translation given in Cohn's book is slightly misleading; it runs thus: "Though yet of our dear brother's death the memory is green to all and it befitteth us to suspend all joyous demonstrations, yet from this time 't is meet we change our suits of solemn black to crimson, purple, and scarlet" (part ii. p. 256). Literally it should be translated thus: "Although our brother's death still is in fresh remembrance with every one, and it befits us to defer all [state] solemnities, yet are we from this time compelled to change our black mourning clothes into crimson, purple, and scarlet." In many places the translator has, very naturally, paraphrased the German text in the language of Shakespeare, even where the latter does not literally render the words of the former. As to any actual evidence of the representation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, or of any other play on the same subject as early as 1603 or 1604, we can find none in Mr. Cohn's work. In the collection of so-called English Comedies and Tragedies, published in 16201 (see Cohn, part i. pp. cvii-cxi), Hamlet does not occur. The first mention of its representation appears to be in a very interesting catalogue of plays, written in an almanac by an officer of the Dresden Court in 1626, in which we find that on the 24th June of that year, Tragadia von Hamlet einen printzen in Dennemarck (Tragedy of Hamlet, a Prince of Denmark) was represented. The other Shakespearean plays contained in the list are Julius Cæsar, Lear, and Romeo and Juliet, which alone appears to have been acted more than once (see Cohn, part i. pp. cxv, cxvi). Marlowe's tragedy of "Barrabas the Jew of Malta" was acted twice, and so was a comedy called "Josepho the Jew of Venice," which may have been partly taken from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, and partly from Marlowe's play. There is nothing to show that the Hamlet in this list was not Shakespeare's tragedy as we have it in the Folio. But now we come to a second very interesting question, namely, was this wretched version of Hamlet, the modernized text of which is given in Cohn, really taken from an old 1 A second edition with exactly the same contents was published in 1624, ut supra, p. cix. VOL. VIII. German play, founded, not on Shakespeare's Hamlet, but on the old play of that name mentioned in Henslowe's Diary under the year 1594? The bald way in which the story is treated, the introduction of incongruous comic characters and scenes, and, perhaps, the fact that the German play is preceded by a prologue, which is written in a serious vein and in somewhat poetical language, all lead us to infer that such may have been the case; but, of course, till we have discovered, if we ever do, the text of the old play of Hamlet, this question must remain undecided. But, at least, we may say this, that it is much more likely that the German play had for its original an old-fashioned tragedy, written before Shakespeare's time, than that the author took the trouble to concoct such a wretched unpoetical and dull piece of work from any one of the versions of Shakespeare's Hamlet which have come down to us. CRITICAL REMARKS. The extraordinary popularity of this tragedy, not only on the stage and in the study of the scholar and poet, but amongst the people who read anything at all, is probably not exceeded, even if it be equalled, by any other literary work in our language, and certainly not by any dramatic work ever written. Hamlet has enriched our language even more than any other work of Shakespeare's with popular and familiar expressions, which indeed have become household words. Wherever the English language is spoken men and women will be found, not always consciously, perhaps, clothing their ideas-ideas common to all humanity-in the language of Hamlet. The enormous amount of intellectual activity, which this play of Shakespeare has produced, may be seen in the formidable list of works written on the subject, given in Furness's New Variorum edition of Hamlet, vol. ii.; nor is the bulk of this literature mere polemical writing. Those who have made a study of the whole play, or of the single character of Hamlet, have, in the course of that study, generally been brought to think about subjects on which they might otherwise have bestowed very little consideration. As for its popularity as an acting play, 17 193 I have spoken of that already. When we come to ask ourselves how is it that this tragedy and its strange philosophic, weak, irresolute hero has taken such a hold on the minds and hearts of the people, it is not very easy at first sight to give an answer. Many more sympathetic stories have been dramatized; for, after all, the main motive of Hamlet, filial love, is not so popular as sexual love. Again, the story has many features in it which can appeal but little to general sympathy. Incestuous marriages, performed in such indecent haste as that of Gertrude and Claudius, are not common; while in the fitful energy with which he carries out his task of vengeance, Hamlet does things which cannot but alienate our sympathies. Indeed some critics have denounced Hamlet as an immoral and almost contemptible character. They have had no difficulty in pointing out instances of his deplorable weakness, and of his cowardly inaction at those decisive moments in his life which demand firm decision and prompt action. But, perhaps, it is the very weakness of Hamlet which inspires our sympathy; he is no hero cast in a semidivine mould. His imperfections, his errors, no less than his affections and his passions, are intensely human. They appeal to the great heart of mankind; his intellectual superiority to those around him, which he feels himself no less than we do, is never allowed to dominate his character so as to paralyse his emotions, or to fetter his impulses. His philosophy is not of that kind which sets him up on an eminence, whence he looks down with calm and rational contempt on the weaknesses of his fellow-creatures. His scepticism is of the most superficial nature. It is a mere film, so to speak, over his heart, which throbs with the tenderest affection and the warmest passion. As to Hamlet's love for his father, which is evidently the strongest affection in his nature, we feel that it was something far beyond the habitual respect or submission which so often does duty for filial devotion. This love is founded not on the false basis of family pride, nor on a mere blind admiration of his father's talents and virtues, but on a keen appreciation of all his nobler qualities; qualities with which Hamlet sympathizes, not from the point of view of a mere outside admirer-if one may use the expression-who felt that they were quite beyond his own reach, but with the earnest veneration of one who kept them always before his eyes as an example to be imitated; who was sensible that these qualities were the real source of that feeling of genial companionship, which raises the love of a son for his father so far beyond the sterile region of duty. The close sympathy that existed between the elder Hamlet and his son, which is so insisted on by the dramatist, directs our attention to what is the key-note to the whole play, which may in some respects be called the Tragedy of Uncongeniality. When Hamlet first appears upon the scene, one cannot fail to be struck by the painful moral isolation of his position. Not one single soul of all ness. those around him seems to share the least in the great sorrow which weighs him down. Not two months have elapsed since the sudden death of his father; of the king whom all his subjects appeared to love and honour; of the generous open-hearted brother, the chivalrous, tender, devoted husband; yet on no face, save on that of his son, is there any shade of sadHamlet looks to the throne, and he sees there his uncle with a smile of smug selfsatisfaction on his sensual face. He listens to him pouring forth sentence after sentence of plausible platitudes with an unctuous hypocrisy, which must have been unspeakably nauseous to the son of that murdered brother whose throne he had, morally if not legally, usurped. And by that uncle's side what does he see? His mother; who was scarcely a widow before she was again a bride; a mother from whose loving sympathy he had looked to find his greatest consolation in his sorrow, on whose sobbing breast he had thought to pour forth all the anguish of his soul. But-horrible disillusion-he had found that breast disturbed by nothing but the throbs of an incestuous passion; and those tears, the worthless tribute of conventional hypocrisy, to the memory of her dead husband, dried by her lover's kisses. If those who were bound by the nearest and dearest ties to his lost father, were so shamelessly forgetful of his death, what could he expect of the courtiers around him? They might well be forgiven if, in their anxiety to curry favour with the new king, they forgot even that decent affectation of regret for the loss of their late master, however kind and gracious he had been, which they may have thought themselves bound to cast off with the court mourning. So the young prince sits there, the one dark spot on the gay scene; his head bowed down with grief, his heart quivering, his brain reeling from the shock he had received; while he listens to that mother whom he had seen hanging on her late husband's neck, as if she would grow there, exhorting him in placid tones to cast off his "inky cloak," and to look cheerful; an effort which could not but have been rendered much easier by the admirable exhortation from the crowned adulterer, who reminded him that everyone must die some time or other, and that the father, whose death Hamlet showed such bad taste in not forgetting, had at some distant period lost his father. One person there was who longed to throw her arms around his neck, and tell him how she shared his grief and his painful bewilderment at the jarring merriment around him. But she dared not show the secret of her heart; for she was bound, hand and foot, by the trammels of conventionality, and forced to keep silence by the filial awe she felt for her worldly time-serving father, supported as he was by her still more worldly and time-serving brother. It is important to notice the condition of Hamlet's mind before Horatio describes to him the appearance of his father's ghost. Half stupefied by the shock which his mother's marriage has given him, he had begun, unconsciously, to piece together in his mind the suspicious circumstances of his father's death; and the accusation which he had but half framed against his uncle is suddenly and supernaturally confirmed by the revelation of the ghost. All the tenderest feelings of his nature are wrung by the pathetic story of his father's end which is now revealed to him. He has to bear, in addition, the overwhelm ing burden of that solemn duty of revenge enjoined on him by his supernatural visitant. Small wonder if, under this severe strain on his emotional and mental faculties, his reason for a short time totters on its throne; and when his friends rejoin him after the interview with the Ghost, his wild and agitated manner might well induce them to believe that the announcement of his intention to put on an "antic manner" was a conscious anticipation of the madness that he felt to be coming on him. Repeated study of Hamlet only confirms me in the opinion, which I ventured to express fourteen years ago,1 that Hamlet's intention of assuming insanity is not only inspired by the idea that he would thus be able to accomplish his task of vengeance more easily, but by the clear consciousness of the fact that, unless his overtaxed mind can have the relief of eccentricity, the assumption must become, sooner or later, a reality. I will again quote that sentence from Coleridge, which is worth all the remarks that German æstheticism or mysticism has perpetrated on this subject: "Hamlet plays that subtle trick of pretending to act only when he is very near really being what he acts." That Hamlet is not absolutely mad, even at this most critical moment of his life, is clear from the beautiful speech which concludes the first act. In the interval supposed to elapse before the action of the play recommences Hamlet has taken one most important practical step towards the fulfilment of the solemn charge imposed on him by his father's spirit. The terrible disillusion, as regards his mother's real nature, which he has undergone, has swept away all that holy confidence, and nearly all that still holier love between them, which now would have been his greatest consolation. Instinctively Hamlet feels that he must deny himself also that other great consolation which seems within his reach, the sympathetic love of Ophelia. If the great task enjoined him-of his own unfitness for which by nature he is well aware-is ever to be accomplished, he must put aside all temp 1 See A Study of Hamlet (Longmans, 1875), p. 22. |