Selected Key Passages Jenkins Arden Shakespeare I. iv. 23-38 Enfolded Hamlet, through line numbers 621+7-622 621+7 Ham So oft it chances in particular men [1] worsened by internal causes that reciprocally augment each other [2] blemish [3] temperamental attribute, disposition [4] enclosures and protections [5] contaminates [6] pleasing [7] being either innate and constitutional, or destined by fate [8] popular judgment [9] a sip, a small drink [10] The reading, "of a doubt" in the 2nd Quarto seems like a transcription error. But since "daub" sounds like "doubt," and since Hamlet has just used "o'er-growth" and "o'er-leavens," o'er-daub is a plausible guess. [11] disgrace A Meditation on Free Will 623-64 The "vicious mole" speech is absent from the Folio, and productions often cut it. But it's a first look into Hamlet's theory of human motivation, personal agency, and psychological cause and effect. Briefly but exhaustively he holds forth on determinism vs free will and nature vs nurture: Some men have a vicious personality flaw that, although small, overshadows their virtues. In sixteen lines he moves from the plural to the singular and therefore from the general to the particular. The speech spirals down from the cosmic (nature, fortune's star) to the little sip of evil soiling the whole. Hamlet hones his argument like a knife whose point, though tiny, can destroy -- even a king. This flaw, where does it come from, is it the man's fault? Hamlet's answer: (1) The man with the vicious mole is not guilty of it any more than he is of the circumstances of his birth, his station in life. (2) This flaw is rooted in a personality trait that is exaggerated in him and which can diminish his reason. (3) It may come from an appetite or addiction that contaminates normal behavior. (4) It is innate, a part of his physical makeup. (5) Alternatively, it is his destiny as ordained by his stars working through his environment. Shakespeare seems almost to anticipate Newton's clockwork universe and the difficulty determinism poses for free will. Clearly, to 'sin' one must be able to have done otherwise. If there is no other choice ... then what? One can almost glimpse under Shakespeare's cosmology such modern concepts as probability and chaos theory. (For more in this vein, see Stoppard's plays Arcadia and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.) Hamlet seems to wrestle with whether the universe is deterministic like a clock or random like a game of dice -- but in practice he treats it as a mix of both. Hamlet's thoughts on Claudius have a certain dramatic irony. Laurence Olivier adapted the speech to use as a voice-over prologue to his Hamlet. Although the Freudian slant is a bit heavy-handed in the scenes with Hamlet and his mother, over all the film has the virtue of explaining motivations that are muddy in other productions. Olivier's point is that Hamlet is unwittingly talking about himself. His screenplay begins with a view of Elsinore and Olivier's voice over the actual text: So oft it chances in particular menThat for some vicious mole of nature in them, By the o'ergrowth of some complexion Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, Or by some habit {grown} too much: . . .that these men -- Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, Their virtues else -- be they as pure as grace, Shall in the general censure take corruption From that particular fault. Freud's formulation, as recapitulated by Olivier, is that Hamlet's indecision or hesitation in avenging his father is an unconscious identification with Claudius (he would be killing a part of himself), fuelled by the prince's guilt over his unconscious wish to supplant his own father. |  Act 1, Scene 4 621+7 {So oft it chaunces in particuler men,} "This," intones Olivier, "is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind." Character flaw is pivotal in tragedy, but the notion that Hamlet's flaw is procrastination is not the unanimous opinion of critics and scholars. Some see Hamlet as moving as fast as he realistically can without tipping his hand to Claudius. Elaborated in The Interpretation of Dreams and later expanded by Ernest Jones, the Oedipus Complex of Freud could more accurately be called the Hamlet Complex but you have to decide for yourself whether it underlies Hamlet's supposed hesitation. Context 603 Barnardo, one of the four characters in the play able to see the Ghost, is no longer with them. For some reason, the Ghost materializes to some and not to others. It doesn't appear to Gertrude or Claudius, to haunt or reproach them. Or to Polonius, King Hamlet's faithful advisor. Perhaps the Ghost decides who sees it. Or maybe its visibility depends on something in the person who sees it. Do Barnardo, Marcellus, Horatio, and Hamlet have something in common, is there about them something different from the other characters who can't see it? 604 Hamlet and his companions are shivering and conspicuously armed with cold steel, pumped for combat, walking as though they just came from sword practice. (Late in the play before he duels Laertes, Hamlet tells Horatio that he is good with the blade, that he practices daily.) 609-610 [T]hen it draws near the season/ Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. Here, just after yet another of Horatio's "ghost facts," the First Folio calls for A fluorish of trumpets offstage and then the sound of two cannon salutes. 611 What does this mean my Lord? There is a great deal of spilt ink about Horatio's question. Up to now he seems to know everything about the customs of Denmark. In the first scene, he's a friend to this ground, and Marcellus terms them liegemen to the king, TLN 21. One explanation is that this type of revel is a custom so local that only somebody actually living at court would know, that to the manner born is a misreading of -- or play on -- "to the manor born." Some even doubt Horatio is a native Dane since Hamlet characterizes it as a Danish custom generally -- and by implication Horatio as not native. This occurs explicitly in TLN 619. Also, it occurs implicitly in TLN 363-4: . . .what is your affair in Elsinore? / We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart. Zeffirelli solved the problem by putting Horatio's question in the mouth of a young page that just happens to be standing there. But rather than trying to fill this plot hole, you could argue that it's more plausible that, just once, there is a fact that escaped him. To an audience, it doesn't matter. By now, they have already accepted Horatio's many faceted nature. 621+7-22 At this point, in response to another flourish of trumpets and volley of cannon, Hamlet looks back toward the lit up castle, ablaze in revelry, and muses about Claudius's character and its weaknesses. 623-64 The "vicious mole" speech also places a moment's lull in the tempo, to rest the audience before the intensity of what follows next. Look, my Lord it comes. Hamlet's spirituality is beginning to take shape, now including Christian elements along with pagan ones: In Gielgud's film version, on first seeing the Ghost, Burton as Hamlet falls to his knees and blesses himself with the sign of the cross. Pursuing the Ghost, in some versions Hamlet carries the sword straight-armed out in front of him, hilt up like a cross, to protect himself. In this speech, "soul" is used as synonymous with "mind," as in psyche -- a mental as much as spiritual concept. But during Hamlet's encounter with the Ghost, the word soul takes on a spiritual meaning for Hamlet, as later it acquires a religious meaning. 653-65 Hamlet says that his soul is immortal, that it lives beyond his body -- this from one who has to this point displayed prominent pagan sympathies, having referred already to Hercules, Niobe, and Hyperion. Hamlet, his warrior father's son, draws his sword and handily backs his companions off. Although he defaults to classicism -- referring to the Nemean lion, the first of the labors of Hercules -- his spirituality is continually evolving. By the end of the play, he is alluding to the Sermon on the Mount. Note on the text: The primary source here is the Enfolded Hamlet of Bernice W. Kliman, ©1996, a conflation of the 1604/05 Second Quarto and the First Folio of 1623. (at www.leoyan.com/global-language.com/ENFOLDED/) Through Line Numbers (TLNs) are based on the Folio. Depending on what readings seem most sensible and accessible to the modern ear, textual choices have been made on a line-by-line, within-line, and word-by-word basis from the melded version. The First Quarto of 1603 has been consulted where possible in an attempt to resolve conflicts in meaning between the Folio and Second Quarto. Spelling is updated to US English, and each line has been repunctuated in accordance with my understanding of the text. -- J Groves |