Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/78



An executive temperament would have needed no other incitement, one would think, to action than the reproving adjuration of the ghostly visitant.

must that son have been who could passively subside after such a nocturnal interview; yet Hamlet stops, considers, hesitates, questions, and—does nothing. Not from any thought that it was a crime to revenge even a father's murder by killing another; no, for he deliberately postpones the most favorable opportunity of revenge which occurs, that he may at some future time insure the killing of his uncle's soul, as well as his body, by taking him, if possible, while he was about some act "that had no relish of salvation in't."

To conceal from himself the evident pusillanimity of his course he assumes the rôle of lunacy, which required no violent exertion and afforded ample time for meditation, delay, and the use of other persons to accomplish his ends. It seems also a cover for cowardice, in that he expects the mantle of his assumed malady to cover him from blame in the execution of that long-considered vengeance he is never destined to take; for, when at last he does stab the King, there is no thought of his father in his mind; it is but the reprisal for later treacheries aimed at his own life. This role of madness, however, only causes a stricter watch to be put upon him; nor does it help him forward one step toward the fulfillment of the Ghost's injunction. The accidental arrival of the players is indeed seized upon and applied by him to the purpose of testing the truth of the ghostly asseverations; but he had evidently never thought of sending for them, for the purpose of questioning the King's conscience—the opportunity was thrust upon him.

The moment of confusion which ensues at the dénouement of that plot, when the King arises in remorseful perturbation, would have seemed to furnish the precise instant when vengeance would have been commended by justice; but the unequaled opportunity is allowed to pass with merely a satirical jest.

That Hamlet meant to slay the King, when he really killed Polonius, is but cumulative evidence that the excitement of the interview with his mother (sought by her, not him) was the immediate cause of his rash and ill-directed act. It was not premeditated, and required no courage, as the party behind the tapestry had no opportunity of defense, and the act can scarcely be considered as part of his settled