Still Another " Hamlet" Problem BOOKS OF THE DAY
By W. J. LAWRENCE SEEING that few stage classics have undergone such a
microscopic examination as Hamlet, and that none has created so much speculation or aroused so much controversy, it is remarkable that there should remain a riddle set by its texts which, whether or no anybody has noticed it, nobody has attempted to read. The question is, regarding the original presentation of the play, was the fair Ophelia borne to her last resting-place enclosed in a coffin or openly on a bier ? When one comes to consider that poser one is rather surprised to find that there exists evidence warranting either view to he taken, and that serious difficulties bar the way to a conclusion.
What we require to bear in mind in dealing with the ;question at issue is that upon it more than one early text of the play has bearing. It is necessary to consult (1) the First Quarto, which embodies an abbreviated surreptitious version of the tragedy, made for the use of a troupe of strollers ; ,(2) the Second Quarto, giving' he earliest known version of the genuine text ; and finally (3) the Folio variant. Let us look at the stage directions in all three relative to the entrance of the funeral
procession. The spurious quarto has " Enter King and Qtieene, learies, and other ,Lordes, with a Priest after a coffin," the Second Quarto, "Enter K. Q. Laertes and the
corse," and the Folio, " Enter King, Queene, Laertes, and a Coffin, with Loids attendant." Obviously incomplete, the direCtion in the genuine quarto is vague enough in all con- science in its mention of the come," which may be taken to mean exactly what you please, but the other directions agree on the point, and, if two to one may be looked upon as a good working majority, there is nothing for it but to conclude that Ophelia was borne in in a coffin. Yet, stage directions apart, the two genuine texts present evidence running counter to that otherwise sensible deduction. As a matter of fact, purely on the strength of what is said in the play, more than one Shakespearian scholar of note has gained the impression that the mortal remains of Hamlet's only lady-love were brought in openly on a bier. Thus, one finds Professor Dover Wilson, in discussing the Graveyard scene in his recent book, What Happens in Hamlet," writing :
" Moreover, when the shrouded figure is borne in, and its identity is made plain, the man who has just been moralising almost tear- fully • upon _tie remains of a jester dead three-and-twenty years ago-, can find nothing to utter but unconcerned surprise, ` What, the fair Ophelia ! ' It is very much what he says when he comes upon her first in the nunnery scene ; and he could hardly have said less .had he .recognised, the pretty daughter of his washer- woman being' borne to her burial" (It is risky to go off at .a tangent, but I cannot resist the temptation to say that a good deal depends on the manner in
which Hamlet's ejaculation is Uttered. It is on record that Henderson infused a world of pathos into the. line.) Fortified by the stage directions, one. would perhaps be justified in maintaining that, in his reference to "the shrouded figure," Mr. Dover Wilson begs the- question, were it not for
the arresting circumstance that the pointreanains to be argued. But it will suffice now to remark how curio_ us it is, if the corpse was brought in uncoffined, that Hamlet, as he stands unseen
with Horatio at the back of the stage, not only fails to identify it, but is not even sure of its sex. All he says, when he notices the maimed rites, is
" . . . this doth betoken,
The come they follow did with despearte hand Fordo its own life : 'twas of some estate, Couch we a while and marke."
It is not until Laertes tells the priest that his sister will be a ministering angel when he lies howling that it suddenly dawns upon him who is being buried. Should anybody have andicity enough 'to argue that here we have proof that Hamlet suffered from myopia, one only needs to reply that he himself averred that when the wind was southerly he knew a hawk from a handsaw, a distinction that nobody nowadays would he able to make. Nor is this the only objection to an uncoilined Ophelia that the text warrants. Let the manner in which she. was borne in be what it might, it may be taken that poor Ross; of May was already lying in her grave when the Queen snid " Sweets to' the sweet—farewell " and scattered over her a tribute of rosemary. Afterwards, Laertes, in cursing th^ men who had brought calamity upon his sister, bids the gravedigger refrain from filling in the earth " Till I have caught her once more in my arms," a longing which he at once proceeds to gratify. On this point the two genuine texts are in thorough accord, but the spurious quarto (which alone positively informs us that " Laertes leapes into the grave " and that " Hamlet leapes in after Laertes ") fails to make Laertes express any desire to take up his sister in .a last embrace, but simply rept.-- seats him as saying, " Forbeare the earth a while : sister, farewell." The inference would be that, whatever the method adopted in town, a coffin was used in the country.
Up to the present the supporters of the bier theory have done most of the scoring, but now comes their most serious set-back. Following upon Laertes' outburst, Hamlet iuAes forward and responds in kind, and a violent struggle between the two takes place in the grave. Are we to believe that both were so far lost to all sense of decency that they could ruthlessly trample under foot the body of the woman they had dearly loved ? For that matter, can we ccnecive that Hamlet would have jumped down upon an uncoffined body at the outset of the quarrel ? Of a sursty, these arc nice questions, but they demand an answer. Much depends on our forming a proper estimate of the characteristics of the Elizabethan audience. Accustomed as it was to see horrible sights both inside and outside the playhouse, it was undoubtedly of the toughest fibre, yet it would be folly to affirm that it was wholly lacking either in human feeling or honest sentiment. And Shakespeare himself must be given some credit for his know- ledge of the fitness of things.
Catching at any straw in the endeavour to arrive at a solution of the problem, one turns in desperation to stage tradition, only to find that stage tradition can give little help. The misfortune is that hardly any of the old con- ventions which ruled in great measure in matters of Shake- spearean representation can be shown to have, had primeval authority. Let it be said, however, for what it is worth, that tradition ordained that Ophelia should be coffined. It is true that there have been revivals of the play within living memory when the rule was flouted, and the body brought in on a bier, but in these cases, if I mistake not, the issue was evaded. As for the tradition itself, its quondam potency is amusingly illustrated by a story told many years ago by Sir Frank Benson in a contribution to The Nineteenth Century and After, even if it must be conceded that the yarn is of the " ben trovato " order. Once upon a time, at a provincial representa- tion of Hamlet, the property-man had been so remiss that he had somehow failed to provide a coffin for Ophelia, and, when it was called for, he had no other resource than to make use of the grandfather's clock standing in the green- room, which, when suitably draped in black, formed a fairly efficient substitute. All went off swimmingly until the fair Ophelia was lowered into her grave, and then, alas ! the clock struck eleven.
It is a thousand pities to check honest laughter,, but *lack, there is a fatal flaw in the story. When laid on its back, your grandfather's clock is the most paradoxical of old contraptions, for then it goes on strike—and neither goes nor strikes.
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