66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



plished others must take the initiative. The very expression which 

 Hamlet uses in that frenzied burst of passion on parting with the 

 Ghost, " While memory holds a seat in this distracted globe,'''' is sugges- 

 tive of a rotund and corpulent person. We can not conceive of the 

 phrase-culling poet applying it to the narrow caput, for instance, of 

 Master Slender, but must believe that Shakespeare kept well in mind 

 the personnel of his hero ; in fact, when did he ever forget that impor- 

 tant item in the description of his creations ! Indeed we are very 

 soon again reminded of the characteristic physical development of the 

 Prince by the expression Ophelia makes use of when she applies the 

 term "bulk " in her sad description of Hamlet's visit to her closet. 



" He raised a sigh * so piteous and profound 

 A3 it did seem to shatter all his bulk" 



Bulk ! the very word Shakespeare employs to describe the pon- 

 derous Wolsey " His very bulk take up the rays o' the beneficial 

 sun." 



Ophelia had taken an accurate survey she notes the disorder of 

 his garments, mentions that he is pale (a symptom of anaemic adipose), 

 but gives no hint that he has " fallen away vilely," which would have 

 been the first thing to attract the attention of a young lady who be- 

 lieved one mad for the love of her. No, his " bulk " is evidently un- 

 diminished either by love or lunacy. 



As with Ophelia, so with all the persons who address or describe 

 him, none make any comment which would suggest a thin or haggard 

 appearance. When Polonius describes to the King the course of the 

 seeming madness, he confines himself exclusively to the mental analy- 

 sis, and makes no mention that the Prince's body has succumbed to 

 the malady. When the King drinks to him, it is not to his better 

 health or better wits, but to his " better breath " ! And the Queen- 

 mother, watching him anxiously during the passage-at-arms with 

 Laertes, makes the exclamation which we have taken as the keynote 

 of our theory, " He's fat and scant of breath." And then, with in- 

 stinctive maternal tenderness calls to him, " Here, Hamlet, take my 

 napkin, rub thy brow " ; which he not heeding, she repeats, " Come, 

 let me wipe thy face." 



Can we not see the perspiration trickling over the broad, heavy 

 cheeks as we read these lines ? It was surely from experience that he 

 spoke of " sweating and grunting under a weary life." 



That he is consciously represented as feeling the impediment of the 

 weight of his own flesh is clearly discerned by the frequent references 

 to it. A gaunt, thin, wiry, or even an ordinary muscular man, would 

 not be apt to describe his flesh as " too solid," or to enumerate as one 

 of the serious ills of humanity " the grunting and sweating under 



* Medical men indicate frequent sighing as a sign of heart-disease, caused by super- 

 fluous fat. 



