ABSTRACT
Confessions in soliloquy, moreover, are generally confirmed,—are, in Shakespeare's tragedy at least, never contradicted by the comment of other characters in a position to know, or by the confidences imparted to them by the character himself. Hamlet eventually tells Horatio of his uncle's guilt and his own purpose, but not of his difficulties or failures in carrying it out. To Horatio (or to himself, indeed) he never complains of any specific dereliction of duty such as sparing the King at prayer. Nor to any one is he known to have a defect. No one ever ventures to speak of him slightingly or critically. Why does not the King, Laertes, or Fortinbras despise him for a scholar and dreamer, at least, instead of taking him as they all do for the worthy son of his warrior sire? Why does not the Queen once sigh, or Horatio sadly shake his head? He is a courtier, soldier, scholar, the expectancy and rose of the fair state, cries Ophelia and there is no suggestion that she is saying it as one who does not know. It is the accepted opinion. The King fears him, and shrinks from bringing him to account for Polonius' death, he says, because of the great love the general gender bear him. The sinful Queen quails under his rebuke, and yet loves him too well to betray his confidence. And, as often in Shakespeare's tragedies, at the end of the play judgment to the same effect is pronounced on his character by a disinterested party, like the chorus of the Greeks. The closing funeral orations, observes Professor Schick, are always spoken by the dramatist himself. 1 “Let four captains,” cries Fortibras, Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage, For he was likely, had he been put on, To have proved most royally; and, for his passage, The soldiers' music and the rites of warn Speak loudly for him. Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
