Notes for lines 2951-end ed. Hardin A. Aasand
1875 Marshall
Marshall : ≈ mal ; ≈ Gervinus
3130-31 Marshall (1875, pp. 87-8): <p. 87> “The character of Laertes is one of which we are tempted to form a higher opinion than, on close examination, it will be seen to deserve; because we cannot help sympathising with him under the terrible calamities which befall his father and sister. A writer, quoted in
Malone’s ‘Shakespeare,” [v1821] remarks very justly:—[cites
mal’s “Laertes’s character . . . good one.” above]
“Gervinus* seems to me to take far too favourable a view </p. 87> <p. 88> of this ‘subordinate hero’s’ [citing Gervinus, p. 560] character. I have already (in Appendix D) explained the light in which, as it appears to me, we ought to regard his condcut towards Ophelia in the earlier scenes of the play; it only remains to consider what proportion of guilt we must assign to him in this plot against Hamlet’s life, to which he so readily lends his aid.
“We must remember that the relations between the young prince and Laertes had been very intimate from their earliest childhood. Hamlet says in the midst of his rage—[cites 3488-89] And again, when he is begging pardon of Laertes for his violent conduct— [cites 3693-95] But it was not only against the friend, but the prince, that Laertes consents to practise such perfidious treason. It is evident that, whatever might be the feeling of the rest of the Court, laertes thoroughly believed Hamlet to be the heir-apparent to the throne. In warning Ophelia against setting her affections on Hamlet, he says—[479-91]
“Such language could be used only of one who was recognised—by the speaker at least—as occupying that high position in the State, second only to the Sovereign, which belongs to a Crown Prince, to whom the duty of every loyal knight and gentleman was to render the utmost respect and honour. To assassinate Hamlet was, on the part of Laertes, an act of high treason, as well as of private treachery.
“And what was the character of him against whose life he was plotting? Claudius, in proposing the crime, is forced to </p. 88> <p. 89>pay a tribute to the noble, frank, and unsuspicious nature of his newphew: [cites 3124-26]
“Surely, had Laertes possessed one spark of true chivalry, these words would have mde him pause: he would, even in the midst of his natural rage and furious desire to avenge his father’s death, have exclaimed, from an irresistible impulse of honour, ‘No! I cannot pursue any but an open and manly vengeance against such a foe: I cannot degrade myself by stooping to artifice against one whose generous nature renders such artifice the most cowardly treachery.’ The real character of Hamlet must have been known to the brother of Ophelia; he must have seen enough of the young prince to feel sure, that if he went boldly to him and demanded of him an account of his conduct, he would have at least as good a chance of arriving at the truth, as he had by taking counsel with one whose only idea of vengeance was a mean and dastardly assassination.
“Base enough was the plan of revenge as Claudius proposes it; but unspeakably baser with the embellishment which the ingenuity of this chivalrous young man added to it. Laerts agrees to entrap the friend of his youth, his generous rival in many an honourable contest, into a challenge at their favourite gameof skill. In this game h is to have the advantage of a real weapon instead of a sham one; and, as if this were not enough, he is to call to his aid that most cowardly weapon—even of murderers—poison. Should his antagonist, by any chance, escape this twofold danger, under the pretence of a refreshing draught he is to be disposed of by another and more potent poison. In this precious scheme of manly vengeance the daring young warrior perseveres, even after his antagonist has apologised most humbly for what offence he is conscious of having committed, and has shown clearly enough that he could, if called upon, explain the unhappy death of Laertes’ father;*[*see 3678-96] but it never occurs to this pattern knight that he might have paused, even at that point, and in a private conference with Hamlet have learnt the truth of what, to the most inflamed mind, could not but have seemed something of a mystery. No, he goes on with his foul task, and, in spite of such scruples,†[†see 3767-69] as even the </p. 89> <p. 90> most hardened criminal must have felt, he stabs the unsuspectin Hamlet with the envenoed point. At the last, it is true, he repents; or rather, he expresses remorse; though even then he puts more of the blame than was just on Claudius. His last words are his best:—[cites 3813-15]
“It is of this cowardly assassin that Gervinus thus writes : [cites ‘Laertes goes so far . . . his mother perish’; see below]
“This is but one fragment of the indirect panegyric which this great German critic pronounced on Laertes: one would certainly think that the passage was prophetic† and intended to glorify the grat man who has subdued German culture beneath his iron rule. A ‘combat’ (according to Gervinus) is a fencing-bout between one man armed with a foil and the other with a sharp rapier! To use an ‘unbated’ weapon in such a trial of skill, having previously anointed that weapon with a deadly poison, is merely to ‘sully your knightly honour!’ I hope those Danes who are at present rejoicing under the amenities of the German rule will read this passage for their edification; it may perhaps reconcile them to that conscientious but slightly unscrupulous system of procedure, which they may have been tempted to characterise as callous perfidy and mean brutality.
“Amazing, indeed, is th moral obliquity which can permit a great and learned man to be fascinated, by the superficial energy of such a character as Laertes, into glossing over the most detestable crimes with hearty approbation masquing under th guise of feeble censure. Gervinus wrote in 1850, and we are now in 1875; those of us who are not blinded by biotry, or muzzled by time-serving cowardice, have been able to recognise, in the grant spectacle of an united Germany </p. 90> <p. 91> extinguished under a Prussian helmet, the same moral obliquity which dictated such a passage as that I have quoted. The ‘dreamers’ have become the ‘men of action,’ and they are now as strong as any nation can be, of whose armour the chains of tyranny furnish no little part; let them rejoice while they may; let them exalt bloodshed above courage, and grasping avarice above honest industry; let them miscall the meanest and cruellest * system of religious persecution ever undertaken, even by the most ignorant barbarians, a struggle for civil liberty; let them continue, conscious of their own strength in a monstrously overgrown army, which drains the life-blood of the country, to defy treaties and violate their plighted word as a nation: now is their day of triumph;—but the time will come when they willa wake too late to a sense of their own degradation, when they will find that, in fighting against a phanton of religious tyranny, they have flung away the safeguards of civil liberty and given themselves over, bound hand and foot, into the power of a monster of political tyranny; when, perchance, the cry of ‘This is I, Hamlet the Dane!’ may ring through Germany with a somewhat different echo than when it could only speak, to the nation’s conscience, of the dangerous similarity of their own character to the over-reflective and too scrupulous young prince, ever prone to speculation and averse to action; † when there may be no Lartes and Claudius at hand to concoct the treacherous assassination of the unwelcome intruder; and when the spectre of a national crime, which bayonets could not bury for ever, shall rise from the grave to demand, it may be to exact, a just vengeance.” </p. 91>
<p. 87><n>*”Burnett’s Authorised Translation, First Edition, 1863, vol. ii., pages 118-20 and 123.”</n> </p. 87>
<p. 90> <n>†Gervinus’s Lectures were first published in 1850.” </n></p. 90>
<p. 91><n>*“Most cruel, because the German persecution is directed against eh soul, and not the body. A true Catholic would rather perish at the stake than live, as he is compelled to live in most parts of the German Empire, without the Sacraments.” </n> </p. 91>
<p. 91> <n>†”See Gervinus’s eloquent parallel between Hamlet and the German nation.—(Authorised Translation, 1st edition, vol. ii., pp. 145-49 [574-79].)” </n> </p. 91>
