1888 mulls

mulls: Martin, Jamieson, Addison, john1, cln1, rug, and Schmidt; also MV, Oth., Mac. MM //s; xrefs.; Southwell analogue

2912-6 Mull (1888, pp. 17-19): <p.17> “Ophelia’s ‘understanding’ (‘nature’) Laertes declares to be mortal, dead (‘fine’=ended), which is manifested to him not only by her manner but by her silence to his earnestly tender appeal—’kind sister, sweet Ophelia’—and by her absence of all recognition of him. He passes on to reflect, that her ‘understanding’ has come to its end (‘fine’) by love: ‘her wits have been overthrown in her agonized love of her father.’ The connection is clear, for it is interwoven between Laertes’ outburst of distress at witnessing Ophelia’s mental conditions and his accounting for the source and origin of it—’love has overturned her understanding,’ rendered it ‘mortal.’ Lady Martin says, ‘The soul of sense being gone, the sweet mind had become ‘such stuff as dreams are made of;’ and Mrs. Jamieson, ‘With Ophelia, it is not the suspension but the utter destruction of the reasoning powers.’

“The second portion of the passage requires for its elucidation that we recognize here Shakespeare’s use of ‘and’=yet; as in MV [2.3.1-2 (772-73)], ‘Jessica. I am sorry that thou wilt leave my father so: Our house is hell, and (yet) thou, a merry devil,’ and see Ham. [3.4.70-71 (2454-55)], ‘and (yet) what judgment Would step from this to this?’ also Oth. [1.3.96 (437)], ‘and (yet) she is spite.’

“The rendering, then, is, ‘yet where the understanding is overthrown (‘fine’), it manifests some precious proof of that understanding (‘of itself’) about the object of its (fatal) love.’ The sequence, then, of the second portion of the passage must be manifest’—Nature is fine in love, yet,’ &c.

“A glance at the context confirms the rendering I here set forth. The ‘precious instance’ is her remembrance of her father: see her tender reference to him [4.5.165 (2917)], and the violent </p.17><p.18> passion it aroused in Laertes [4.5.69-70 (2921-2)], ‘Didst thou with understanding persuade me to revenge our father’s death, that understanding could not move me as it does in its overthrow’ (‘mortal’); and note also his reflection [4.5.174 (2926)], ‘All this incongruity has in it more than what is in a sound or congruous condition.’

“See also [5.1.248-249 (3441-2)], where Laertes calls down woe on the individual whose wicked deed deprived Ophelia of her ‘most ingenious sense’ (nature, mental functions).* The ending of her sane powers, in this his further reference to the fact after her death, shows how keenly the calamity had impressed him, and the phraseology he uses confirms my rendering. The mental functions are referred to as ‘nature’ in Mac. [2.1.9 (582)], ‘that nature gives way to’ while asleep. One of the dictionary meanings of nature is, ‘a mind, intellect.’ Addison: ‘reverence which is due to a superior nature.’ See Oth. [1.3.96 (437)]: ‘For nature so preposterously to err:’ i.e. the faculty of understanding, as shown by the line following, ‘Being not deficient or lame of sense:’ (for rendering of sense, see n. [3.4.70-76 (2454-2455+5)]).

“All the commentators betray a misconceptions of the passage by suggesting their renderings hesitatingly, and which are the opposite of the true meaning. Johnson, in his innocent dogmatic vein, expresses the difficulty felt by them, but his conclusion is amazing—the passage, he virtually says, cumbers the ground: ‘These lines are not in the Quarto, and might have been omitted in the Folio without great loss, for they are obscure and affected.’ The Clarendon editors, say, ‘The sense is obscurely expressed: “fine” seems to mean delicately tender, and “instance” proof or example [of what?]: “The thing it loves” is here Polonius, the “precious instance’ Ophelia’s natural soundness of mind. Her sanity has followed her father to the grave.’ That which is precious is not Ophelia’s soundness, but some remembrances of her father; and it is surely a contradiction in terms to say that her understanding is ‘delicately </p.18><p.19> tender,’ while her sanity (understanding) has been interred (become mortal) with her father.

“The sentiment that the Rugby editor finds in the passage appears captivating, but it is not altogether intelligible: he says, ‘Nature I so spiritualized by love, that it sends its most precious functions one by one after dear ones lost, as instances or samples of itself, till none remain.’ In Ophelia’s case her love to her father was undoubtedly tender and exquisite, but the question is not as to nature being ‘spiritualized;’ the point is, that love overturned her understanding. Then, further, she sends no functions, &c.—that is a fanciful meaning caused by an uncritical interpretation of the text. The ‘precious instance’ that her understanding is still able to work upon and to manifest is to be found in the report of the Gentleman [4.5.4 (2749)], ‘She speaks much of her father;’ on her admission to the Queen, she sings much of her father. The King notes it, [4.5.47 (2789)], ‘Conceit of her father’ ‘it all springs from her death.’

“The same mistaken rendering of ‘find’ is adopted by Schmidt—‘nice, delicate, tender.’

“Compare, ‘is this the find (end) of his fines,’ [5.1.105 (3297)]—‘fines,’ too, has the legal signification of ‘ending.’ Also Luc. 936, ‘Time’s office is to fine (to end) the hate of foes.’ And Robert Southwell, in his ‘Love’s Servile Lot’ (1593):—‘Like winter rose and summer ice, Her joys are still untimely; Before her hope, behind remorse, Faire first, in fine unseemly.’ i.e. ‘in the beginning fair or promising, in the end disastrous.’ Again the same poet, in his charming ‘Times go by Turns:’ ‘No joy so great but runneth to an end; No hap so hard but may in fine amend.’ i.e. be amended in the end.

“It is hardly necessary to say, that the rendering which has been mistakenly imposed on the above passage, is to be found, as fit and applicable, in MM [1.1.35 (41)], ‘Spirits are not finely touch’d But to fine issues.’” </p.19>

<n.><p. 18> “*ingenious sense’ means, ‘accomplished, felicitous matured understanding.’” </p.18></n.>