The case of Hamlet, Act III, Scene I

[Donnadogsoth]

Perhaps the most well-known play by the most well-known English playwright, is Hamlet. But who is Prince Hamlet, really? A man is never more himself than at the moment of momentous decision, hence the excerpted soliloquy below which defines the play. In it we see inside Hamlet's mind in such a way that we ourselves can become him. Not in dress or exact mode of speech, but in intellectual understanding, though, we should hope, in our understanding of Hamlet's life as ending in the unfolding and conclusion of a tragedy, with a different intent and therefore immortal outcome.

 

Thus, the soliloquy:

 

HAMLET: To be, or not to be--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--

No more--and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

 

A mouthful, sure, but what does it mean? Is Hamlet talking about suicide (“might his quietus make with a bare bodkin”)?  And hell (“But that dread of something after death,” and “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all”)? The key decision is found early on:

 

To be, or not to be--that is the question: [to be what? To be a human, or to be an animal.]

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune [to be passive, an animal]

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep-- [to be a leader, courageous, human]

 

So he's saying we have a choice from the beginning, to be passive or active against the world.

 

No more--and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,

 

Problem: the “sleep” is merely the sleep of the higher, principled intellectual faculties. It can't be literal death because no one dreams when they're dead. So “perchance to dream” is the problem, and what dreams come forth with “intellectual death”?

 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

 

When we have "shuffled off" the mortality of the beast in seeking the immortality of man.  Next he creates a double effect:  the suicide motif, and the troubles to be expected by one pursuing a higher destiny.

 

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin?

 

The animal self has two ways to "his quietus make":  literal suicide, and the suicide of being absorbed into the inner "God" of the intellectual human mind.  Both are equally terrifying.

 

Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

 

We thus bear the ills of the beast, the yoke of the beast, rather than stand up as men and face the terrors of politics and the yawning abyss of the inner space of the creative mind.

 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

 

He uses “conscience” ironically here, again referring to his metaphor of suicide but meaning that our duty to our animal feelings act as a kind of conscience against “betraying” our bestial brains for our higher minds, which our brain-based bestial selves views as a kind of God.

 

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

 

And thus the man dies in beastly impotence, trashy gestures, and futile violence.

 

-- Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

 

Here he admits his sin of cowardice when faced with the possibility of becoming a real leader of men and taking decisive action.

 

Hamlet is a tragic figure not because he “couldn't make up his mind” to kill his father's murderer, but because he failed to rally the courage needed to escape his lower self (inferno) and reach the “undiscovered country” of paradise described in Dante's Commedia, “from whose bourn no traveller returns” because the travellers there always realise that after drinking the mere waters of paradise, the strongest wines of inferno are like dirty dishwater.   He failed to take the action needed to rally Denmark from the "rot" that was threatening it.  The irony is that Hamlet was no stranger to courage and violence, carrying a sword he killed Polonius with one thrust with and later used skilfully in a duel with Laertes. He was not suicidal or craven, except in the dimension of the approach to the higher mind, the imago viva Dei, the mind of principle and potent political action. Thus, a tragedy, and a classical one because it is one we can use to become Hamlet and choose to attain the “undiscovered country” where he did not.