Yet he cries out against Ophelia, 'We are arrant knaves all; believe
none of us!' He reproaches this daughter of Eve with her own weaknesses
and the great number of her sins in words reminding us of Isaiah, [14]
where the wantonness of the daughters of Zion is reproved. He, the
ascetic, calls out to his mistress: 'Go thy ways to a nunnery!... Why
wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?'
Let us hear what his mistress says about him. This passage also,
explaining Hamlet's madness, is new:--
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatched form and feature of blown youth,
Blasted with ecstasy. [15]
With what other word can Hamlet's passionate utterances be designated
than that of religious ecstasy?
From the first moment when he sees Ophelia, and prays her to remember
his sins in her 'orisons,' down to the last moment when he leaves her,
bidding her to go to a nunnery, there is method in his madness--the
method of those dogmas which brand nature and humanity as sinful,
whose impulses they do not endeavour to lead to higher aims, but which,
by certain mysteries and formulas, they pretend to be able to overcome.
The soul-struggle of Hamlet arises from his divided mind; an inner
voice of Nature calling, on the one hand:--
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest;
whilst another voice calls out that, howsoever he pursues his act, he
should not 'taint his mind.
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