“Before discussing the rest of the letter, let us examine this perpetually misunderstood piratical capture. We have already noticed
Hamlet’s first glance at it, ‘
I see a cherub that sees them.’ But there is a previous most positive and most specific allusion to it, at the close of the interiew with his mother: ‘O ‘tis most sweet Where in one line two
crafts directly meet.’ If the word
crafts had its present maritime significance, in Shakespeare’s time, the pun alone is conclusive of a pre-arranged capture.
How arranged, is neither here nor there; but opportunities of chartering a free crusier, could not have been wanting, to a prince of Denmark; and what is more significant,
the fleet of Fortinbras was then in port at Elsinore. There is an understanding, just ever so vaguely glanced at, </p. 70> <p. 71>between the two young princes. But the following lines admit of but one interpretation: [cites 2577+1-2577+8] One would think it required a miraculous allowance of critical obtuseness to ignore a counterplot so strikingly pre-announced. Yet, opening Coleridge, you find, ‘
Hamlet’s capture by the pirates: how judiciously in keeping with the character of the over-meditative
Hamlet, ever at last
determined by accident or by a fit of passion!’ And, opening Ulrici, [see n. 3189-91] you find, ‘He cheerfully obeys the command to visit England, evidently with the view, and in the hope, of there obtaining the means and opportunity ((perhaps the support of England, and a supply of money and men, for an open quarrel with his uncle)) to set about the work in a manner worthy both of himself and its own importance.’ —God save the mark! ‘
Accident frustrates his plans. Captured by pirates, he is set on shore in Denmark against his will,’&c. And, opening Wilhem Meister [see n.] , you find
Hamlet’s ‘capture by pirates, and the death of the two courtiers by the letter which they carried,’ regarded as ‘injuring exceedingly the unity of the piece,
particularly as the hero has no plan.’ After such obvious, amazing, misconception, one may be pardoned for believing he sees ‘—’Two points in
Hamlet’s soul Unseized by the Germans yet.’ To make assurance doubly sure, comes the letter to
Horatio, ‘In the grapple
I boarded them; on
the instant they got clear of
our ship: so I
alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like
thieves of mercy; but they knew what they did.’ Can circumstantial proof go farther? Could any twelve men of sense, on such a record, acquit
Hamlet of being an accessory before, as well as after, the fact?” </p. 71>