He would have been
formidable to Othello or Macbeth. If the sentimental Hamlet had crossed
him, he would have hurled him from his path with one sweep of his arm.
This view, then, or any view that approaches it, is grossly unjust to
Hamlet, and turns tragedy into mere pathos. But, on the other side, it
is too kind to him. It ignores the hardness and cynicism which were
indeed no part of his nature, but yet, in this crisis of his life, are
indubitably present and painfully marked. His sternness, itself left out
of sight by this theory, is no defect; but he is much more than stern.
Polonius possibly deserved nothing better than the words addressed to
his corpse:
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune:
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger;
yet this was Ophelia's father, and, whatever he deserved, it pains us,
for Hamlet's own sake, to hear the words:
This man shall set me packing:
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
There is the same insensibility in Hamlet's language about the fate of
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; and, observe, their deaths were not in the
least required by his purpose. Grant, again, that his cruelty to Ophelia
was partly due to misunderstanding, partly forced on him, partly
feigned; still one surely cannot altogether so account for it, and still
less can one so account for the disgusting and insulting grossness of
his language to her in the play-scene.
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