Page 65 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

Iviii H A M L E T

also another meaning, still connected with the breeding
of horses and cattle, which would not be missed by an
Elizabethan audience and of which Shakespeare makes
use again in The Tempest when the cynic Sebastian
sneers at Alonso because he would not marry his
daughter to a European prince,
But rather loose her to an African.
And that some shade of this meaning was in the mind
of Polonius is strongly supported by the reference to
*a farm and carters' that follows, according to Shake-
speare's usual practice of sustained metaphor noted in
section IV above. Nor does the chain of significance
cease there; for when Hamlet calls Polonius a 'fish-
monger' in line 174, that is to say a bawd or pandar, and
when he goes on immediately afterwards to compare his
daughter to 'carrion' flesh and to speak of her 'concep-
tion,' the words are clearly related to those of Polonius
just before and are indeed hardly intelligible without
them. In short, 'loose,' 'fishmonger' and 'carrion' are
so linked together as to make it impossible, for me at any
rate, to escape the conclusion that Shakespeare intended
Hamlet to overhear Polonius's unhappy jest.*
Though the rest is conjecture, we are even yet not
entirely without Shakespeare's guidance, inasmuch as
Polonius's words 'Here in the lobby' (coupled, we may
suppose, with a jerk of the thumb towards the inner-
stage, which lies behind them as they speak) are a direct
invitation to the audience to look thither, and thus are
almost as good as a stage-direction, marking with practical
certainty, as I think, the point at which Hamlet comes in,
and the place of his entry.* The entry must, of course,
seem unpremeditated and no impression must be given
of deliberate spying on Hamlet's part; it would never
do, for example, to let him linger in his place of conceal-
ment. The nine lines between the King's question' How

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2.1.124.