true meaning of the episode is easily overlooked by the reader. And such, too, is the function assigned to the dumb‑show in Hamlet. Thus the dumb‑show must be the presentation of an event which is to be repeated later, and, at the same time, it must be presented with some peculiar feature of its own, so as to suppress part or the whole of the true meaning ofthe event. ・
One obvious factor which constitutes the peculiar manner of the presentation of the dumb‑show is its vagueness, which comes, needless to say, from its dumbness or its
very nature asa Corn‑mediadell' Arle.This is rather a self‑evident matter, and has been pointed out by many critics/* But there are at least two, more important factors in this presentation. One is the ironical situation in which Claudius has been made quite blind to the nature of the entertainment − a point already clarified in our discussion. And the other is Hamlet's feigned attitude attached externally to the presentation − another fact already clarified. Thus we have three factors. The dumb‑show is presented with
(1). the vagueness of a mime (2) Claudius' perfect blindness (3) Hamlet's feigned attitude.
These factors are important, because the dumb‑show itself has potentially many things to reveal, which would be actually revealed if it were not for these counteracting factors.
Here, an important thing to be noted is the fact that all these factors work almost entirely for Claudius. Audience's understanding is in no degree affected by them. As a result, audience can grasp the full meaning of the dumb‑show while Claudius is
positively precluded from it And it is due to this circumstance that the dumb‑show in HamletISso unique. Its uniqueness comes from its outward situation rather than from its inside. It seems rather common to compare it with other dumb‑shows found in the plays
of the Elizabethan‑Jacobian period, and to say that the dumb‑show in Hamlet'\sunique, for it rehearses, without words, exactly the action that is immediately afterwards repeated in dialogue, 65 or that there appears to be no other example in Elizabethan drama of a
dumb‑show setting forth an argument."66 Such an explanation may be correct as a description of a fact. But we cannot but feel, at the same time, that it does practically nothing to promote our understanding of the dumb‑show in Hamtel. A.nd the reason is that its real uniqueness does not lie in such an internal aspect.
Its real uniqueness lies in its external situation, for the show is, above all a device designed by Hamlet for Claudius. To Claudius, it has all its tantalizing inexplicability.
But it is not so with us When the dumb‑show begins, it instantly occurs to us that this show is going to present the same event that was already described by the Ghost. We are not perplexed at its inexplicability. And this circumstance gives us time to indulge in admiration for the ingenuity of Hamlet's device and also to imagine to ourselves the expected response of Claudius. Thus what we see is not merely the dumb‑show, but the whole scene in which Hamlet is staging it as the first step of his device to entrap Claudius. A similar situation is to be found also in the case of the interlude in A Midsummer‑Night s Dream.There, we can perfectly guess what kind of a performance
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it will be, because we are given in advance the particulars of its preparation and rehearsal. When it begins, therefore, we need not be surprised by the silliness of
the performance. And this is a very different circumstance from the one which the stag。
audience (i.e., Theseus and other courtiers ) meet with. As a result. it becomes possible for us to enjoy not only the mechanics' staging 6f Pyramus and Thisby but also, in the same degree, the half‑sneering jokes (some are sympathetic and some are not) uttered r 辱 by its audience. Quite obviously, in such a case as this, it will be simply meaningless to
emphasize the uniqueness of the show as a play (there could be no other example in Elizabethan drama of such a silly performance! ), for what is depicted there is not the play as such but the men who play or hear it.  ̄
Such a situation does not exist in those eχamples which are often referred to by critics in comparison with the dumb‑show in Hamlet. In the case of The SpanishTragedy,for instance, the dumb‑show is designed by the author entirely for the audience in the
theatre. Of course, it is presented before the stage audience (i.e., Andrea), but there is no substantial gap in understanding between the stage audience。and the real audience. It has the same vagueness and the same obscurity for both, and produces the same effect when explained by a Presenter ; namely, the anticipation of future events. We may find a similar situation in the mysterious procession of the Apparitions in Macbeth.There, too, no substantial gap exists between the stage audience (i.e.。Macbeth ) and the real audience. It has the same vagueness and mystery, and the same effect as well, for both.
Indeed, compared with these, the uniqueness of the dumb‑show in Haml。Z is striking.
And yet the difference comes from their outward situations and not from their inside qualities, dumb or spoken, symbolical or argumentative, 0r anything that belongs to the inside. Thus the uniqueness of the dumb‑show in Ha加々t lies in its eχternal situation, which may be illustrated graphically as follows :
(1)Hamlet ,△
dumb‑show stage audience
real audienceCf. A Midsurmner‑Nii
(2)The Sfcanish Tragedy
Ci、Macbeth
audience real audience
audience real audience
audience
And this point will be clarified further if we、say that the、audience of the dumb‑show in Hamletis hetero geneouswhereas the audience of the dumb‑show in TheSpanishTragedy IS homogeneous. ` .・
There are at least three kinds of audience in the case of the dumb‑show in Uamle.t:
(1) Ophelia and other courtiers including Gertrude and Polonius
of the Play Scene in Hamle£(Part Two) (T. Obayas田) 79,
(2)Claudius ‥ (3)Horatio and the real audience in the theatre.
And these three are distinguished from one another by the amount of the knowledge acquired fr om thedumb‑show. For the third audience, the full meaning of the dumb‑show is a self‑evidentmatter. The vagueness of the pantomime does not hinder their understanding.
For them, the show is nothing but a reproduction of the Ghost's story, and its meaning is a matter of silent understanding, which makes them ready, so to speak, to exchange
significant glances. Thus the items which go to constitute their understanding may be set down as follows, in order of immediacy to the outward phenomenon of the dumb‑show :
(1) The show represents a scene of poisoning・
(2)The scene represented is similar to the circumstance of the murder of the 】ateKing.
(3)The similarity is an intentional and not an accidental one。
(4)lt is Hamlet's deliberate intention。
(5) Hamlet is going to test Claudius so as to acquire more relative grounds for。
his action ; that is to say, his mind is fixed upon revenge.
All these are obvious facts for the third audience from the very beginning. For the first audience, however, even the first item is quite inaccessible. Indeed, here is the significance of the choice of the murder‑by‑poison‑poured‑into‑the‑ears. 67
As often noted, it is a most unusual method of murder." And Shakespeare introduced it deliberately into his plot. No matter what sources it may have been derived from,
Shakespeare's use of the idea is surprisingly effective. For one thing, it makes up a suitable image for the foul and unnatural crime of Claudius. Also it emphasizes the dreadful secrecy of Hamlet's knowledge, for who but the devil can be so shrewd as to smell out the exact circumstance of such an unusual murder ! It is the revelation of this incredible miracle that is to hit Claudius and to break down utterly his confident belief in the perfectness of his crime: But more important here to be noted is the fact that a mere pantomime is absolutely inadequate to convey any reasonable meaning of the action of the poisoner:
Anon comes i71 a fellovむ,takes off his croTX,n,kissesi£,and poursj,oisonin the
Kinがs ears,and exits,
Let us imagine the fellow stabbing the King by a pointed (and perhaps poisoned) instrument, or killing him by some other usually conceivable method. Then, his action will be perfectly understood even in the form of pantomime. But, as it is, the action of the fellow does not convey any reasonable meaning to audience, that is to say, to the first audience. In fact, it is not until Lucianus speaks his speech rather weirdly :
Thou mixture rank, With Hecate゛S ban.
Thy natural magic,
of midnight weeds collected, thrice blasted, thrice infected,
and dire property,・
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On Who】esomelife, usurp immediately.
Poiirstheboi%oni71hisears.
and his action is eχplained by Hamlet : He poisons him i' th garden. . . , that the first audience can grasp the meaning of the fellow's action for the first time. A poison of such a dire property that some portion of it poured into the ears is enough to kill the man !
Only then they know that this is a scene of poisoning. And that is aU. They know nothing of the long and secret struggle which has been taking place all the time between Hamlet and Claudius. ヽ
Thus even the first item does not come into the knowledge of the first audience. And this item being suppressed, all the remaining four are inevitably lost in a perfect ignorance.
The fellow's action mimicking a poisoning may still be an action, but its meaning is an utter blank for them. Naturally, therefore, Ophelia, a representative of the firstaudience, is eχtremely puzzled and says, What means this, my Lord ? Hamlet's answer affirms
her response, implying that this show is mischievously (and, therefore, intentionally) inexplicable. So she is obliged to content herself with her own conjecture : Belike this show imports the argument of the play. Needless to say, her conjecture refers to the function and not to the meaning of the dumb‑show. Though she can guess at its function as an argument, the argument as such stillremains to be an obscurity for her.
But the same pantomimic action of the fellow presents a very different feature to the second audience, i.e., Claudius He stands, as it were,' midway between the first and the third kinds of audience, or, to be more specific, between the utter black of the former and the perfect understanding of the latter. Of course, the mimed action is as much an obscurity for Claud叫S as for Ophelia. But the fellow's action is just what he himself once acted. He knows that a man can be poisoned just in such a manner. Moreover, the action is far from being a common one. If it were to be a stabbing by a dagger or something like it, the similarity would be far less poignant. But such a coincidence of such a rare event is absolutely impossible for him to overlook. Is this coincidence accidental 0r intentional ? If accidental, what a miraculous coincidence it is ! No, it cannot be an accidental one. Then who intended it ? Thus all the five items should instantly come into his mind with an overwhelming impression and persuade him that there must be some offence in the show. But as it is, they are not yet articulated in any clear form − quite naturally in such a short space of time. Rather, they flash for a moment in Claudius' mind and reverberate there only with one vague and half‑subconscious idea left behind of something very threatening. Furthermore, his recognition of danger is
inevitably accompanied with a tantalizing uncertainty. It stands upon an uncertain premiss.
The whole cojecture may be true or may not be true, depending upon the truth or the untruth of the first premiss (i. e., that the show presented a scene of poisoning).
His recognition can by no means be free from this uncertainty or ambiguity. And it is I .1 φ¶here that those three factors listed above come into full force.
In the first place, as we know. the ambiguity as such of his recognition comes just from the vagueness of the mime. If the fellow's action were to be acted with his speech, the ambiguity would instantly fly off. But, of course, the vagueness of the mime is not the
Scene in j7α・1・t(Part Two) (T. Obayashi)
8f
only cause of the ambiguity. We all know that a criminal's mind is too suspicious to be in any way optimistic about such a matter. If white and black are presented with an even balance, it is always his nature to suspect the latter to be the case. If Claudius had been on his guard from the beginning, that is to say, if Claudius had not been so blind to the true nature of this entertainment held by Hamlet, even the vagueness of the show would be insufficient to hold down his ever‑growing suspicion or to prevent it from becoming predominant. Thus, equally essential is the second factor―the ironical blindness of Claudius as to the true nature of the entertainment. Just before the Play Scene, he was assured of its being a harmless amusement ofHamlet − not only harmless but also desirable because, as it seemed to him, it might possibly dispel the something‑settled matter in Hamlet. That is to say, Claudius' state of mind has been most unsuitable for entertaining a jealous suspicion. As a result, he stands there, before the momentary flash of danger, deprived of all his own will and decision how to react, almost to the extent of being hypnotized。
And, finally, there comes the third factor − Hamlet's feigned attitude. which seems to address itself indirectly to the eavesdropper Claudius, This show hardly deserves our serious attention. We need not worry about its mischievous mystification, which is an idle one, indeed. Whimsical actors that they are ! This suggestion powerfully works upon the hypnotized subject. Such an easy‑going attitude and such an idle talk! Surely, there can be nothing serious about all this. It is a mere amusement, after all. So Claudius is impelled t0 lull his suspicions, and is ready to brave it out into the spoken play that follows. Such a response of Claudius' is an absolute necessity for Hamlet's plan.
Here in the first stage of the trap Hamlet must not scare the victim too much. The victim is only on the threshold of the trap, and it is essential for Hamlet's plan that Claudius should brave it out through the whole trap until the final moment. Indeed, some fleeting suspicion of the hidden facts is indispensable, because without it the final snapping would not work at all. But, for the moment. it must be lulled to sleep because the victim must be allured more into the inside of the trap where it will become most fitting for Hamlet to disclose all those facts one by one till the final revelation suddenly appears ・with an unequivocal clarity。
The fact is now clear. The King does see the dumb‑show with some attention, and even suspects some hint of danger in it. But he puts on a bold front and braves it out, not because the hint is too vague, as the second tooth theory seems to suggest, nor because he is a self‑composed man, but that he is ・impelled and allured to do so almost involuntarily by the hypnotizer Hamlet."
The slow process of identification
Thus, in the first stage of the Mouse‑trap, we see hidden facts revealed momentarily as in a f!ashing light and soon held back or ignored forcedly. It is a necessary foreshadowing of the final revelation which will come at the third stage. Now, between these two dramatic moments, there comes a long process of patient waiting. The audience as well as Hamlet are now waiting patiently for Claudius to approach the trap. Patience is indispensable here
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because the victim must be allured right into the trap without ever being aware of the danger. Any kind of excitement or disturbance would be quite irrelevant. The prevalent atmosphere must be, by all means, that of suppressed calmness and monotony。
0f course, the calmness is not the calmness of vacancy. 0ねthe contrary, it is a calmness fully charged with an eχpectation of the coming excitement. In that sense it may more properly be called a process of silent accumulation of energies. Nevertheless, it is a calm process, and it is only after this calmness that the final revelation can strike us so poignantly as an inevitability. This situation may be clarified further if we compare it with a similar situation realized in the first third of Macbeth. There, too, we find a three‑phased develop‑
ment of events :
(1) the Witches' initia】dark hint of what will happen in the future (Act l.
sc. i & iii)
(2) Lady Macbeth's persuasion and Macbeth's inner struggle, with other neces‑
sary expositions (Act I. sc. ii, iv −vii, Act II.・ sc.i) (3) the commitment of the regicide (Act II:,sc. ii・).
Just as it was so in the case of the Mouse‑trap, the first stage presents an ambiguous hint of an event which is to be realized in the third stage. And yet it is no mere repetition.
The fact is rather that something like a dialectical change iS・ effected during the interval between the two occasions. As a result, though the real outcome is fairly within the scope of our eχpectation, yet the manner of its solution is widely different from, and even contrary to, the one anticipated by us at the beginning。 During the first stage of the events, though we are somewhat disturbed by the sinister atmosphere of the Witches (hinted most strongly by their Fair is foul, and foul is fair ), there is stillsome good reason for us to suppose that Macbeth will become King in a sheer luck just in the same way as he actually becomes Thane of Cawdor. But this optimism, so to speak, 0fours is gradually undermined during the second stage till, getting into the third stage, the final outcome (i. e., the regicide) suddenly appears before us with an irrefutable necessity.
As compared with these two (preceding and following) stages, the second stage is bare of outward action, or, at least, of exciting action, and conflicts there are essentially of an inner or mental quality. And yet the fact is that the energies accumulated during this
stage become the very agent of that dialectical change which is to be produced at the final moment. 。
And so it is with the second stage of the Mouse‑trap. The first and the third stages of the Mouse‑trap have several features in common, setting aside the fact that they are concerned with one and the same action (i. e., the poisoning). For example, we already referred to the fact that the antic disposition is a common characteristic of these two stages
while it is absent for a while during the second stage. And yet the antic disposition changes its meaning when it reappears in the third stage after the absence. During the first stage it was working in such a way as to suggest a harmless madness, madness for love, and thus to counteract powerfully the given hint of threat ; whereas in the third stage
Hemlet's wild talks are positively charged with dangerous menaces to Claudius :
85
The Mouse‑trap. Marry, how ? Tropically . ...
'tisa knavish piece of work : but what o that ? ....
pox, leave thy damnable faces. and begin . ...
Come : the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge. ≒ ..
Under the terror of the incredible coincidence, which is now shaping itself as an irrefutable fact, even Hamlet's idle talk to Ophelia becomes a horrible menace to Claudius :
I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.
It is as if Hamlet were addressing himself to Claudius, I can guess at your secret unmistakably no matter how much hidden in secrecy it may beブ ln short, the meaning of the antic disposition makes a complete change from white to black.
Also, Claudius' dumbness is another common characteristic of the two stages. During the second stage, Claudius is rather inquisitive of the players' play and addresses himself openly to Hamlet. Compared with this, the first and the third stages are bare of Claudius' speech. Indeed, we have his speech : Give me some light. Away. But it rather marks the end of the whole business, and does not properly belong to the third stage. Claudius' response is described suggestively in the following remarks by other characters :
OPHELIA : The King rises .
HAMLET : What, frighted with false fire?
QUEEN : How fares my Lord ?
and also in the subsequent conversation between Hamlet and Horatio : HAMLET : Didst perceive ?
HORATIO : Very well my Lord.
HAMLET : Upon the talk of the poisoning ? HORATIO : l did very well note him.
The characteristic feature of Claudius' response described in all these is unmistakably that of dumbness. And yet, this time, how different it is from the dumbness of the firststage ! The dumbness of the first stage was the dumbness of indifference or of ignorance, though a forced one to some extent. The dumbness of the third stage. 0n the other hand, is that of a man who stands with a pallid face utterly dumbfounded and quite at a loss to know what to say or to d0. Overwhelmed by horror, Claudius is simply bereft of all the powers of utterance. Therefore, it is most likely that even his Give me some light. Away, is uttered rather lamely. In fact, there is no reason to suppose that he runs shrieking from the room in terror'". The fact is that Claudius has not the nerve to shriek or to run. The faltering voice and the faltering steps are all that is possible for him.
Now, these dialectical changes are made possible only by the intervening presence of the long process of the secondμage. The second stage is indispensable because it is here that the original dramatic irony is gradually dissolved and the distance between optimism ( Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, / And drive his purpose on to these delights )and suspicion ( There's something in his soul, / O'er which his melancholy sits on brood