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PAGE 91
EXPLANATION OF HAMLET'S MYSTERY
avenged. These are two, Claudius' incest with the Queen,
and his murder of his brother. It is of great importance to
note the fundamental difference in Hamlet's attitude towards
these two crimes. Intellectually of course he abhors both,
but there can be no question as to which arouses in him the
deeper loathing. Whereas the murder of his father evokes in
him indignation, and a plain recognition of his obvious duty
to avenge it, his mother's guilty conduct awakes in him the
intensest horror. Furnivall1 well remarks, in speaking of the
Queen, "Her disgraceful adultery and incest, and treason to
his noble father's memory, Hamlet has felt in his inmost soul.
Compared to their ingrain die, Claudius' murder of his father--
notwithstanding all his protestations--is only a skin-deep
stain." Now, in trying to define Hamlet's attitude towards
his uncle we have to guard against assuming offhand that this
is a simple one of mere execration, for there is a possibility of
complexity arising in the following way: The uncle has not
merely committed each crime, he has committed both crimes, a
distinction of considerable importance, for the combination of
crimes allows the admittance of a new factor, produced by the
possible inter-relation of the two, which prevents the result
from being simply one of summation. In addition it has to
be borne in mind that the perpetrator of the crimes is a relative,
and an exceedingly near relative. The possible inter-relation
of the crimes, and the fact that the author of them is an actual
member of the family on which they are perpetrated, gives
scope for a confusion in their influence on Hamlet's mind that
may be the cause of the very obscurity we are seeking to
clarify.
We must first pursue further the effect on Hamlet of his
mother's misconduct. Before he even knows that his father
has been murdered he is in the deepest depression, and evi-
dently on account of this misconduct. The connection between
the two is umistakable in the monologue in Act I, Sc. 2, in
reference to which Furnivall2 writes, "One must insist on this,
that before any revelation of his father's murder is made to
Hamlet, before any burden of revenging that murder is laid
upon him, he thinks of suicide as a welcome means of escape
from this fair world of God's, made abominable to his diseased
and weak imagination by his mother's lust, and the dishonour
done by his father's memory."
"O! that this too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew;
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
1Furnivall: Introduction to the "Leopold" Shakespeare, p. 72.
2Furnivall: Op. cit., p. 70.
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