Page 66 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

I N T R O D U C T I O N lix

may we try it further?' and his conclusion 'We will try
it' give Hamlet just time to enter with his eyes upon his
book, to catch the sound of voices on the outer-stage, to
pause for a moment beside the entrance thereto, to
compose his features and to come forward. But brief as
the interval is, it has been long enough for him to take
in the whole plot. And the stage-direction, once in place
at line 159, is seen to affect far more than Hamlet's
relations to Ophelia; it is the mainspring of the events
that follow in Acts 2 and 3; it renders the Nunnery-scene
playable as never before; it adds all kinds of fresh light
and shade to the Play-scene.

VI
Restoration along these lines, I believe, makes the plot
of Hamlet work properly for the first time since Shake-
speare's day. And what of the mystery of Hamlet's
character? It frames it in more delicate dramatic tracery,
but it does not solve it. The mystery remains, deeper per-
haps than that which enshrouds Iago and Cleopatra (or
the figures of Rembrandt) but not different in kind. I do
not attempt a solution, but I may note three points about
it by way of bringing these remarks to a conclusion. In the
first place, Hamlet's procrastination, which is considered
his most mysterious feature, was certainly intended by
Shakespeare. Indeed, the clearer the lines of the plot
become, the more obvious it is that Shakespeare went
out of his way to emphasise it. From time to time a critic
will arise to maintain that there is no delay in Hamlet, or
at least none that an audience need bother about. It is
true that, apart from the second and fourth soliloquies,
very little is said directly about the deferred revenge, and
that when the fourth is omitted, as it was from the First
Folio and as it commonly is upon our stage, the im-
pression of delay is greatly weakened. Yet there the two
soliloquies are—ninety lines of them—and I do not
Q.H.-4