Certain Neiu Elucidations of Shakespeare 67 



him worthy to sit in his father's seat. So we are led to con- 

 clude that Hamlet will resort to suicide, if he resort to suicide, 

 not before, or instead of, the deed of retribution, but after. Even 

 when he has destroyed the king in an unmasked attack upon him- 

 self, he dies (V. ii. 355, 356) in dismay lest the court and nation 

 misconceive his motive.''* 



The notion of Hamlet's moral inertia, and lack of decision, dis- 

 solves as we see him awe the court, and the king's guardsmen, in 

 the last scene. He faces here a king, crowned and in state, 

 flanked by the surviving Polonius-group of ' tedious old fools,' 

 thanes of the realm, with Osric and his fellow unbred parvenus, 

 whom the king has made, presumably since his coronation, lords. 

 And the Switzers, with their halberds, stand by the throne. Is 

 not the king, in his double plot, secure ? Yes. The victim, lone, 

 suspicious but submissive, only watches, waiting. But when the 

 queen, falling forward from her throne, reaches her arms out to 

 him, as her only hope, the Hamlet of the First Act comes back : 



O villainy! Ho! Let the doors be lock'd! 

 Treachery! Seel; it out! 



Hamlet is not alone. The doors are locked, but by men who are 

 not followers of the king, and who, at point to act further, pause 

 as Laertes makes all search unneeded. Then Hamlet, realizing 

 that at last his hands are free, administers his father's thrust. 



3* This was of course suggested to Shakespeare, for altered treatment, 

 by the mention, in Chapter VI of the Hystorie, 



How Hamlet, having slaine his uncle, and burnt his palace, made an 

 Oration to the Danes to shew them what he done ; 



and by this statement, in the last paragraph of the chapter, of the outcome : 



This oration of the young prince so mooved the harts of the Danes, and 

 wan the affections of the nobility, that some wept for joy, to see the 

 wisedome, and gallant spirit of Hamlet; and having made an and of their 

 sorrow, al with one consent proclaimed him king of Jutie and Chersonnese, 

 at this present the proper country of Denmarke. 



In the fact that the brother whom Fengon slew was not king of Den- 

 mark, but only co-governor of a province, we get hint of a reason why 

 Shakespeare had proceeded gingerly in the manner of Claudius's taking 

 off, making him doubly forfeit his right to live. The business of assassi- 

 nating an anointed sovereign, even if usurper, 'in jest,' upon the stage, 

 was less innocuous in Tudor days than now. 



169 



