For the completion
of this part, only a few details were necessary. From them, we must all
the more be enabled to gather Shakspere's intention.
In the speech of the Ghost in the second quarto--otherwise of well-nigh
identical contents with the one in the first edition--there is only
one new line, but one which deserves the closest consideration.
It is that which we have quoted--
Unhousel'd, disappointed, unaneled.
The effect this statement has on the course of the dramatic action we
shall explain later on. In act iii. sc. 3, where Hamlet's energy is
paralysed by this disclosure of the Ghost, we afterwards again come upon
a short innovation, and a most characteristic one, though but consisting
of two lines.
In the first quarto we see Hamlet, in the beginning of the play,
seized with an unmanly grief which makes him wish that heaven and
earth would change back into chaos. But a new addition to this
weariness of life is the contempt of all earthly aspirations: the
aversion to Nature as the begetter of sin. The following passages
are not to be found in the first quarto:--
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! Ah fie! 't is an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.
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