| 348 NOTES ON SOME OTHER [1818 |
tinency, to this last image; but it has likewise its dramatic use and purpose. For its commonness in ordinary conversation tends to produce the sense of reality, and at once hides the poet, and yet approximates the reader or spectator to that state in which the highest poetry will appear, and in its component parts, though not in the whole composition, really is, the language of nature. If I should not speak it, I feel that I should be thinking it; -- the voice only is the poet's, -- the words are my own. That Shakspere meant to put an effect in the actor's power in the very first words -- "Who's there?" -- is evident from the impatience expressed by the startled Francisco in the words that follow -- "Nay, answer me: stand and unfold yourself." A brave man is never so peremptory, as when he fears that he is afraid. Observe the gradual transition from the silence and the still recent habit of listening in Francisco's -- "I think I hear them" -- to the more cheerful call out, which a good actor would observe, in the -- "Stand ho! Who is there?" Bernardo's inquiry after Horatio, and the repetition of his name and in his own presence, indicate a respect or an eagerness that implies him as one of the persons who are in the foreground; and the scepticism attributed to him, --
"Horatio says, 'tis but our fantasy;
And will riot let belief take hold of him -- "
prepares us for Hamlet's after eulogy on him as one whose blood and judgment were happily commingled. The actor should also be careful to distinguish the expectation and gladness of Bernardo's "Welcome, Horatio!" from the mere courtesy, of his " Welcome, good Marcellus!"
Now observe the admirable indefiniteness of the first opening out of the occasion of all this anxiety. The preparation informative of the audience is just as much as was precisely necessary, and no more; -- it begins with the uncertainty appertaining to a question: --
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| SECT. IV.] PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE. 349 |
Mar. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?--"
Even the word "again" has its credibilizing effect. Then Horatio, the representative of the ignorance of the audience, not himself, but by Marcellus to Bernardo, anticipates the common solution --"'tis but our fantasy!" upon which Maxcellus rises into
"This dreaded sight, twice seen of us --"
which immediately afterwards becomes "this apparition," and that, too, an intelligent spirit, that is, to be spoken to! Then comes the confirmation of Horatio's disbelief;
"Tush! tush! 'twill not appear! --"
and the silence, with which the scene opened, is again restored in the shivering feeling of Horatio sitting down, at such a time, and with the two eye-witnesses, to hear a story of a ghost, and that, too, of a ghost which had appeared twice before at the very same hour. In the deep feeling which Bernardo has of the solemn nature of what he is about to relate, he makes an effort to master his own imaginative terrors by an elevation of style, -- itself a continuation of the effort, -- and by turning off from the apparition, as from something which would force him too deeply into himself, to the outward objects, the realities of nature, which had accompanied it: --
Ber. Last night of all,
When yon same star, that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one --"
This passage seems to contradict the critical law that what is told, makes a faint impression compared with what is beholden . . . .
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