Page:Shakespearean Tragedy (1912).djvu/167

Rh first line the hero speaks contains a play on words:

The fact is significant, though the pun itself is not specially characteristic. Much more so, and indeed absolutely individual, are the uses of wordplay in moments of extreme excitement. Remember the awe and terror of the scene where the Ghost beckons Hamlet to leave his friends and follow him into the darkness, and then consider this dialogue:

Would any other character in Shakespeare have used those words? And, again, where is Hamlet more Hamlet than when he accompanies with a pun the furious action by which he compels his enemy to drink the ‘poison tempered by himself’?

The ‘union’ was the pearl which Claudius professed to throw into the cup, and in place of which (as Hamlet supposes) he dropped poison in. But the ‘union’ is also that incestuous marriage which must not be broken by his remaining alive now that his partner is dead. What rage there is in the words, and what a strange lightning of the mind!