![]() ![]() ![]() It’s also not clear why Hamlet describes Fortinbras, the mighty Norwegian prince who commands an army, as ‘delicate and tender’. For one, as Thompson and Taylor point out in their notes in the Arden edition, it’s odd to hear Hamlet speaking of having the ‘strength and means’ to carry out his revenge while he’s aboard a ship for England. ‘How all occasions do inform against me’ shows Hamlet at his most clear-headed and reasonable, and yet there are some internal contradictions in this soliloquy. (‘Sith’, before they became the antagonists in the Star Wars films, was an early modern form of ‘Since’.) After all, he has everything he needs – the justification, the desire, the strength, and the resources – to go and enact his vengeance. (If it’s the latter, then only one-quarter of his hesitation is due to sensible consideration of the consequences the other three-quarters is down to being too scared to go through with the revenge.) Either way, Hamlet says he doesn’t know why he’s still alive and is able to talk about taking revenge (without actually getting on with it). Hamlet now wonders whether he hesitates out of animal-like simplicity and mindlessness, or whether it’s from his own (human) cowardliness and over-thinking. Sith I have cause and will and strength and means Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do ’ A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdomĪnd ever three parts coward, I do not know ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |