Brother
Anthony (¾È¼±Àç)
When
Shakespeare made Hamlet say, ¡°Now, Mother, what¡¯s the matter?¡± (3.4.8) as he
comes storming into her ¡°closet,¡± and follow that up with ¡°What¡¯s the matter
now?¡± only six lines later, he could hardly have realized how extremely ¡°modern¡±
and ¡°colloquial¡± he would still sound more than 400 years later. In contrast,
Gertrude¡¯s response ¡°Why, how now Hamlet,¡± (3.4.13) sounds archaic and rather
silly, although probably she is simply imitating Juliet¡¯s Mother¡¯s impatient ¡°Why,
how now, Juliet?¡¯ (3.5.68) when Juliet lingers on her balcony after saying
farewell to Romeo. Neither Mother likes to be kept waiting by their child. ¡°What¡¯s
the matter¡± is probably as common an expression today, in Britain at least, as
it was in Shakespeare¡¯s time. That is presumably why it stands out so strongly
in Hamlet, where the general style of speech is as ¡°uncolloquial¡± as we
expect of Shakespeare. But what makes that phrase so strikingly modern is more
than just the colloquial feel of ¡°what¡¯s the matter?¡± It has at least as much
to do with the way Hamlet addresses his Mother as ¡°Mother.¡±
That
is still today a confrontational mode of address, stressing the hierarchical
and conventional nature of the child-mother relationship as a way of
potentially challenging and resisting it. By addressing his mother as ¡°Mother¡±
in this tone at this point, Hamlet joins the serried ranks of the world¡¯s
unhappy, mum-pecked sons. He has come to her Closet because his mother has sent
for him, and while she clearly expects him to obey her, Hamlet reckons he is no
longer her little boy, it is not so obvious that a grown-up son should come
running every time his ageing and domineering mother sends for him, even if she
is his Queen too. The ultimate modern echo of Hamlet¡¯s outraged, frustrated use
of ¡°Mother¡± is the same word in the mouth of Norman, the scary young man at the
motel in Hitchcock¡¯s ¡°Psycho,¡± and we all know how much conflict obeying his
mother¡¯s voice meant for him!
It
is easy to understand at least part of Hamlet¡¯s very modern irritation at this
point in the play as a response to the fact he has been informed, repeatedly,
by his least favorite people, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, then by Polonius,
that his mother wants to see him. The events during the performance of the
play-within-the-play make it quite clear that he is being called to a scolding
for having been a naughty boy and upset his new step-father. Today. at least,
men of Hamlet¡¯s age who address their mother as ¡°Mother¡± are usually affirming
a resistance. It is a word that often indicates a wish by the young to
establish a zone of freedom from a perceived threat of domination by the old
and out-of-date. Nobody in my English-speaking world ever addresses their
Mother as ¡°Mother¡± when they are feeling happy and affectionate.
In
many of Shakespeare¡¯s plays, the younger characters are clearly vested with
strong symbolic value as ¡°bearers of fresh, bright future promise¡± in contrast
to the weariness and hopelessness of the parents¡¯ generation. It is no secret
that Shakespeare frequently explores at the end of a play the essentially
optimistic theme of a ¡°passing of power¡± from the stale, worn-out old
generation of parents to a fresh, young newly-wed couple. This motif finds its
final, most obvious representation in The Tempest. Hamlet has ample
reason to be exasperated by the plot of his play; he must be wondering what
theatregrams or narremes Shakespeare has been using. After all, Hamlet is
almost the only major adult male character in a Shakespearean play to have a
mother still alive and in a position to scold him. And where almost all the
other characters of his generation are given a chance to form a romantic
couple, here it is his mother who is the blushing newly-wed, while Ophelia and
Hamlet never have a snowflake¡¯s chance of getting their romantic act together
at all.
Hamlet is often
considered to have a very low estimation of himself, because of the way he
seems to compare himself so negatively with his Father. Many commentators have
made much of Hamlet¡¯s words in the First Soliloquy: ¡°My father's brother, but
no more like my father Than I to Hercules (1.2.152-3).¡± This, they claim, is
strongly ironic, for everyone knows that the new king is quite unlike the old
one, and that Prince Hamlet the Hesitant is a far cry from Hercules the Heroic,
who in Hamlet¡¯s eyes seems to be identified with his father. Wrongly, probably,
on all counts. On closer inspection the old king and the new king look very
similar indeed, virtual twins in fact, both effective monarchs, both of them
men of action and skilled in diplomacy, and both of them devoted to and loved
by their wife, too. We ought not to believe Hamlet so readily, perhaps. And it
would be even more serious if he were believed unquestioningly when he seems to
be saying that he cannot possibly be compared to Hercules, for as a renaissance
humanist scholar he knows very well that he can be and should be compared to
Hercules, without having to have strangled serpents in his cradle as a baby.
Hamlet is a modern man
-- of his author¡¯s times, at least -- a reader of books and thinker of
thoughts. When he expresses the First Soliloquy, he is just beginning to sense
that his father has joined the long string of examples begun by Boccaccio in
his De Casibus, adapted by Chaucer as the Monk¡¯s Tale, rewritten
by Lydgate in his Fall of Princes, and expanded in the various editions
of the Mirror for Magistrates, of victims of the arbitrary turning of
Fortune¡¯s wheel. He too, like so many, was a king cut off in a flash at the
height of prosperity with no warning and for no apparent reason. He has yet to
hear the Ghost¡¯s tale of murder but when he hears it, it makes no real
difference to the fact of the matter, since his poisoning uncle was at best an
unwitting agent of whatever power the shifts of Fortune answer to. The stress
that the Ghost lays on his complete lack of ¡°readiness¡± for death, ¡°Unhouseled,
disappointed, unaneled, No reckoning made¡± (1.5.77-8), only shows that King
Hamlet had not cultivated the wisdom that comes with any awareness of Boethius¡¯s
Lady Philosophy¡¯s indications that Fortune¡¯s wheel is ever turning, her slings
and arrows are ever at the ready, and prosperity never lasts long. Everyone
should be ready to die at any moment.
So far as Philosophy is
concerned, the Ghost¡¯s reported sufferings in Purgatory are entirely his own
fault, the inevitable result of his manifest lack of wisdom. Hamlet has read
Boethius¡¯ Consolation of Philosophy, of course, but he might also be
familiar with Petrarch¡¯s most popular and often-translated treatise, De
remediis utriusque fortunae, where he could learn that ¡°human virtue and
reason can withstand fortune¡¯s relentless claims¡± (CHRP 645). His mention of
Hercules suggests another, related theme derived from his readings. Coluccio
Salutati (1331 – 1406) was Chancellor of Florence when he composed his long but
incomplete De laboribus Herculis and this unpublished, almost unread
work is only one of a series of humanist works that take Hercules as a
significant symbol of Man in his most fulfilled mode.
The Cambridge
History of Renaissance Philosophy tells us that Petrarch launched and
Salutati pursued ¡°the cult of human freedom and activity, articulated through
the acquisition of a sapientia (wisdom) closely linked to eloquentia
(eloquence), because beyond individual moral growth and the contemplative
ideal, each man is a citizen who must work for the common good of his city or
state . . . Though full of admiration for the moral heroism of the Stoics,
Salutati is mindful that we are neither ruled by fate nor blindly led by
natural forces. It is through our commitment to overcoming the adversities of
fortune and historical circumstances that we become virtuous: ¡®virtuosi non
natura sed operibus efficimur¡¯ (the virtuous are made not by nature but by
works).¡± The myth of Hercules recurs in many humanist celebrations of man¡¯s
constructive capacities, of the virtuous dignity which raises him to the level
of the stars, that is, to the level of a divinity.
We
all know how important the question of what it means to be a ¡°Man¡± is in Hamlet.
Harold Bloom has published a huge volume devoted to ¡°the Invention of the Human¡±
with Hamlet at its heart. But renaissance Humanism begins with Petrarch, and as
Nicholas Mann writes (http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/submissions/Mann.pdf
), ¡°Petrarch
seems to have played a significant role in the transmission to posterity of the
image of ¡®Hercules at the Crossroads¡¯.¡± Petrarch drew upon Cicero¡¯s De
officiis (I 32 118) when he placed this episode in the first book of his De
vita solitaria, as an example of the advantages of solitude. The story is that
¡°when Hercules came to the age of puberty and thus entered upon the road of
life, he was much tortured by his desires, and withdrew to a solitary place
where he meditated upon the two paths that seemed open to him: that of voluptas
(pleasure), and that of virtue. He finally chose Virtue. It appears that
Petrarch is the first writer for some thousand years to revive the story. . . .
Petrarch writes of young Hercules¡¯s anguish ¡°when, as if at a crossroads ('velut
in bivio'), he hesitated long and hard¡±. Hercules's heroic choice of
Virtue, the subject of endless iconographical explorations by Renaissance and
other artists, enabled him, Petrarch says, not merely to reach the peak of
human fame, but even, according to some, a god-like state.¡± Indeed, there are
many renaissance paintings and drawings that show the young Hercules being solicited
by female personifications of Pleasure and Virtue, the former often wearing far
fewer clothes than the latter, and Hercules looking as if he is rather
unwillingly choosing the more decorous of the two.
Hamlet did not have to have read Petrarch
to know this story, though. Cicero¡¯s
Offices had become a fixture in the Latin grammar school curriculum in
England by the second half of the sixteenth century. The story would even have
been known to pre-grammar school youngsters whose education was influenced by
Francis Clement¡¯s The Petie Schole, published in 1587, for it included
an English translation of Cicero¡¯s account of ¡®Hercules at the Crossroads.¡¯ And
English language readers could have found it translated as early as 1533 in
Whytinton¡¯s edition of Tullyes Offyces or in the one by Grimald in 1553.
(From: Hercules in Emblem Books and Schools by Ayers Bagley)
Hamlet
has no illusions about the value of mere ¡°Words, words, words (2.2.192).¡± His
way of speaking at times may seem designed to drive his uncle up the wall and
Polonius round the bend. Yet for Hamlet as for any humanist, eloquentia
is only of value when preceded by sapientia; not words but wise being
are what matters most to him. ¡°To be or not to be (3.1.56),¡± he suddenly
announces for no apparent reason at a moment when the on-stage audience of
Polonius and the King is expecting him to start talking to Ophelia, ¡°that is
the question,¡± and the audience in the stalls all nod knowingly because this is
the really famous bit, some have even memorized it. No need to wonder too much
what it means, either; someone¡¯s teacher once said Hamlet is thinking of
committing suicide, and surely that sounds right?
But then he
puzzles everyone by asking himself which of the sides of his mysterious choice is
¡°nobler,¡± an unexpected category since it implies that both being and not being
have a essentially noble quality. After an extended deliberation evoking the
ambiguities of death, he arrives at his conclusion: ¡°Thus conscience does make
cowards of us all (3.1.83),¡± which seems to have nothing to do with suicide.
What he seems to be saying now is ¡°Thinking too hard can be harmful to your
revenge,¡± but Hamlet never seems to mean what he seems to mean. ¡°Conscience¡±
usually refers to a moral ability to distinguish a right course of action from
a wrong one. ¡°Coward¡± is an insult applied by the violent and warlike to any
who do not agree with thoughtless slaughter. It might not be a bad thing to be
called a coward, as Hamlet seems to discover when he applies it to himself
occasionally elsewhere. As we have seen, Salutati considered that ¡®virtuosi
non natura sed operibus efficimur.¡¯ Here Hamlet is obviously thinking that
it is better to be virtuously inactive than to be mindlessly violent, and that
discretion really can be the better, more virtuous part of valor.
Hamlet¡¯s
greatest novelty in his way of being is the manner in which he fights tooth and
nail inside himself to find out what is the right thing to do and never accepts
the obvious, immediate, emotionally gratifying answer; unlike his mother, or
his uncle, or Laertes. There is no risk of conscience making cowards of them,
they plunge ahead, guided by the uncertain light of desires, pleasure, and raw
hatred. Or as Aristotle once wrote, in his Eudemian Ethics 3.1, ¡°A man .
. . is not brave . . .if, knowing the magnitude of a danger, he faces it
through passion – as the Celts take up arms to go to meet the waves¡±. We do not
have to assume that Shakespeare / Hamlet knew this text; the story of the Celts
challenging the sea is found in other classical works, as Harold Jenkins points
out in his long note in the Arden edition. Still, themes from Aristotle¡¯s
relatively little-known treatise (only published 55 times in the renaissance,
compared with 300 editions for the later, more developed Nicomachean Ethics
of which it contains a draft) seem to underlie not only the line about ¡°taking
arms against a sea of troubles¡± but much of the Soliloquy. Its third chapter
ends ¡°since all excellence implies choice, it makes a man choose everything for
the sake of some end, and that end is the noble . . .¡± That is perhaps a key to
why Hamlet¡¯s topic for debate (his ¡°question¡±) is a choice (that only he can
make) as to which is the ¡°nobler¡± way of being or not being – here we have ¡°Hamlet
at the crossroads.¡±
As a modern thinker, he
knows that what raises man to nobility is not birth but virtue. So the question
he is pondering is rather more subtle than the stereotyped version he might
well have debated at school in Wittenberg: ¡°It is better to be alive but very
unhappy than not to be alive at all.¡± He almost seems to be recalling a line
near the start of that same text of Aristotle: ¡°a man was asking why one should
choose to be born rather than not to be born and Anaxagoras answered by saying
¡®for the sake of viewing the heavens and the whole order of the universe.¡¯ Equally
important for Hamlet is something Aristotle writes a little later: ¡°bravery
consists in following reason, and reason bids one choose the noble. Therefore only
the man who endures the frightening for the sake of the noble is fearless and brave.
. . . reason does not bid a man to
endure what is very painful or destructive unless it is noble¡±
There Hamlet at the
Crossroads finds the key allowing him to formulate his choice: ¡°Is it more
noble to endure unhappiness alive without action, or to act although the
inevitable result will be my death?¡± Hamlet has done his homework, he has some
lines from St. Augustine at the back of his mind too: ¡°The reason I am
unwilling to die is not because I would rather be unhappy than not be at all,
but a fear that after death I may be still more unhappy¡± (De Libero Arbitrio,
III. i. 17). Unlike his foolish Mother, or warmongering Father, he knows that
virtuous being is a serious matter, deserving deep thought. The theme of
Hercules at the Crossroads is notoriously ¡°Pelagian,¡± the Pagan¡¯s choice of
Virtue being made within any apparent need of Prevenient Grace, but thanks to
Boethius Hamlet knows that in the end it is all a matter of Providence, under
whose guidance the noble choice of virtue has been made. Then Fortune has no
power at all:
there's a special providence in the fall
of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all: since no man has
aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? (5.2.190)
Hamlet is a very wise
young man. He realizes that he can never find his own, novel, unique way of
being if he simply follows standardized stereotypes, Father¡¯s or Mother¡¯s. He
has to make his own choices. Sapientia must take precedence over eloquentia.
The only person in the play who knows the truth about Hamlet¡¯s novel way of
being is Horatio. He alone recognizes the Virtue-choosing Hercules in him and at
the end of the play announces his nobility and his apotheosis in a single
breath:
Now cracks a noble
heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels
sing thee to thy rest! (5.2.338)