Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. (Andrew Cecil) Bradley
page 187 of 619 (30%)
page 187 of 619 (30%)
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iii., p. 423), he makes the Ghost of Agamemnon appear in order to
satisfy the doubts of Orestes as to his mother's guilt. No reader could possibly think that this Ghost was meant to be an hallucination; yet Clytemnestra cannot see it. The Ghost of King Hamlet, I may add, goes further than that of Agamemnon, for he is audible, as well as visible, to the privileged person.] [Footnote 62: I think it is clear that it is this fear which stands in the way of the obvious plan of bringing Hamlet to trial and getting him shut up or executed. It is much safer to hurry him off to his doom in England before he can say anything about the murder which he has somehow discovered. Perhaps the Queen's resistance, and probably Hamlet's great popularity with the people, are additional reasons. (It should be observed that as early as III. i. 194 we hear of the idea of 'confining' Hamlet as an alternative to sending him to England.)] [Footnote 63: I am inferring from IV. vii., 129, 130, and the last words of the scene.] [Footnote 64: III. iv. 172: For this same lord, I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so, To punish me with this and this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister: _i.e._ the scourge and minister of 'heaven,' which has a plural sense elsewhere also in Shakespeare.] [Footnote 65: IV. iii. 48: |
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