was not due to any mysterious unknown cause, but to this disappointment, and so to allay the suspicions of the King. But if his feeling for her had been simply that of love, however unhappy, and had not been in any degree that of suspicion or resentment, would he have adopted a plan which must involve her in so much suffering?[1]
5. In what way are Hamlet’s insults to Ophelia at the play-scene necessary either to his purpose of convincing her of his insanity or to his purpose of revenge? And, even if he did regard them as somehow means to these ends, is it conceivable that he would have uttered them, if his feeling for her were one of hopeless but unmingled love?
6. How is it that neither when he kills Polonius, nor afterwards, does he appear to reflect that he has killed Ophelia’s father, or what the effect on Ophelia is likely to be?
7. We have seen that there is no reference to Ophelia in the soliloquies of the First Act. Neither is there the faintest allusion to her in any one of the soliloquies of the subsequent Acts, unless possibly in the words (III. i. 72) ‘the pangs of despised love.’[2] If the popular theory is true, is not this an astounding fact?
- ↑ Many readers and critics imagine that Hamlet went straight to Ophelia’s room after his interview with the Ghost. But we have just seen that on the contrary he tried to visit her and was repelled, and it is absolutely certain that a long interval separates the events of I. v. and II. 1. They think also, of course, that Hamlet’s visit to Ophelia was the first announcement of his madness. But the text flatly contradicts that idea also. Hamlet has for some time appeared totally changed (II. ii. 1–10); the King is very uneasy at his ‘transformation,’ and has sent for his school-fellows in order to discover its cause. Polonius now, after Ophelia has told him of the interview, comes to announce his discovery, not of Hamlet’s madness, but of its cause (II. ii. 49). That, it would seem, was the effect Hamlet aimed at in his interview. I may add that Ophelia’s description of his intent examination of her face suggests doubt rather as to her ‘honesty’ or sincerity than as to her strength of mind. I cannot believe that he ever dreamed of confiding his secret to her.
- ↑ If this is an allusion to his own love, the adjective ‘despised’ is significant. But I doubt the allusion. The other calamities
