The Documentary Problem

Most critics have long been agreed that there was a pre-Shakespearean Hamlet, Prince of Denmark—presumably that noted by Henslowe as played in 1594— and that its author was Thomas Kyd. ¹ Nashe's allusions, in his address “To the Gentleman Students” prefaced to Greene's Menaphon (1589), concerning “shifting companions that run through every art and thrive by none,” leaving “the trade of Noverint whereto they were born”; “whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls, of tragical speeches”; “Seneca let blood line by line and page by page,” “the Kid in Æsop”; “Italian translations,” and “twopenny pamphlets,” point clearly and solely to Thomas Kyd. He was the son of a scrivener; he is known to have issued at least one pamphlet, which is preserved, and to have translated Tasso's treatise on household management (1588), and he echoes Seneca throughout his Spanish Tragedy. The earlier theory that “trade of Noverint” pointed to Shakespeare is ruled out alike by date and by biographical fact. The identification of Kyd, definitely begun by English writers, ¹ has been carried further by Herr Gregor Sarrazin in his Thomas Kyd und Sein Kreis (Berlin, 1892), where actual survivals of Kyd's phraseology in Hamlet, especially in the First Quarto, are specified: BELLIMPERIA

Farewell, my lord,

Be mindful of my love and of your word.

ANDREA

’Tis fixed upon my heart.

First Part of Jeronymo: Dodsley's Old Plays, 2nd ed., iii. 70. ²

LEARTES

Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well what I have said to you.

OPHELIA

It is already lock't within my heart.

Hamlet, ist Q. Rep., 1860, p. 16.

Fair locks, resembling Phœbus' radiant beams,

Smooth forehead, like the table of high Jove.

Soliman and Perseda, 333.

Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself.

Hamlet, Fol. III, iv. 56.

Importing health and wealth of Soliman.

S. and P. V, i. 24.

Importing Denmark's health and England's too.

Hamlet, V. ii.

ISABELLA

O where's the author of this endless woe?

HIERONIMO

To know the author were some ease of grief,

For in revenge my heart would find relief.

Spanish Tragedy, II. v. 39.

Revenge it is must yield my heart relief,

For woe begets woe, and grief hangs on grief.

Hamlet, ist Q. Rep. cited, p. 83.

BELLIMPERIA

Hieronimo, I will consent, conceal,

And aught that may effect for thine avail,

Join with thee to revenge Horatio's death.

HIERONIMO

On, then; and whatsoever I devise,

Let me entreat you, grace my practices.

S.T. IV. i. 45 (V. 146).

GERTRUDE

I will consent, conceal, and do my best,

What stratagem soe'er thou shalt devise.

Hamlet, ist Q. Rep. cited, p. 65.