Marksburg Castle, Rhine Valley, Germany: wine cellar (photo (c) Ulrike Boehm; all rights reserved)
Shortly before the Ghost's appearance on the night when Hamlet keeps watch with Horatio and Marcellus, the three hear a fanfare of trumpets and cannons in the distance. Horatio, the commoner – and as yet, apparently not entirely familiar with customs at court – asks about the fanfare's meaning. Hamlet's response first underscores his disgust with what he sees as yet another instance of wantonness (although in this case, even one that's perfectly in conformity with tradition); then, at least in the Second Quarto version of the play, his thoughts swerve off to a more general contemplation on the power of perception.
An excerpt from this soliloquy's second part is quoted in the preface to Sir Laurence Olivier's 1948 movie; highlighting, together with the famous characterisation of the tragedy as the story of a man "who cannot make up his mind," Hamlet's Freudian relationship with Gertrude as the stamp of [that] one defect which will ultimately bring about the Prince's downfall. On the face of it, a more than plausible interpretation (and who am I to quarrel with Sir Laurence anyway?) And unlike others, I'm not even necessarily swayed by the fact that this part of Hamlet's musings, like his "bloody thoughts monologue" in Act IV, Scene 4 ("How all occasions do inform against me") isn't contained in the 1623 "First Folio", which is customarily accorded the weight of considerable circumstantial evidence as to the way Shakespeare's plays were produced by his own company, but merely in the 1604 Second Quarto, which is likely a print version of the Bard's first draft of the play. I do, however, most respectfully disagree with Sir Laurence's interpretation of the soliloquy's language and construction as such.
The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swagg'ring upspring reels,
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
Plenty of vocabulary implying profligacy and decadence: "rouse," "wassail," "swaggering," "reel," "draughts of Rhenish," "bray out" – there is really no mistaking our Prince right from the start!
Is it a custom?
Ay, marry, is't;
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
*//* This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduc'd and tax'd of other nations;
They clip us drunkards and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
The fact that Hamlet criticises the usage while at the same time acknowledging its normality and, indeed, wholly routine nature underscores how much he abhors anything he sees as bearing even the slightest stamp of immorality. In this particular instance, however, what disturbs him (at least according to the Second Quarto's version of the scene) is not only the fact that Claudius has adopted the custom at all – he probably didn't expect anything different from his uncle to begin with – but the image created thereby abroad, among other nations not familiar with Denmark outside the bounds of prejudice and stereotype based merely on appearances. ("Um, you want to supersize that, Sir?" – Sounds mighty familiar to me even today ... or what do you associate with that last question, with an "M"-shaped pair of golden arches and a clown named Ronald MacDonald, if not a certain all-American meal?)
So oft it chances in particular men
That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As in their birth, – wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin, –
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o'erleavens
The form of plausive manners, that these men
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,
Their virtues else – be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo –
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault. The dram of e'il
Doth all the noble substance often dout
To his own scandal. *//*
His own remarks on the cause of national prejudice then lead Hamlet to a consideration of prejudice and judgement by appearances on an individual level, where he concludes that essentially the same considerations apply. Only in individuals, he not only sees customs and habits as potential sources of misapprehension in others, but also of a person's inborn characteristics and certain attitudes adopted over the course of their life. (Sounds to me like on the issue of "nature vs. nurture," our Prince is firmly in the "et – et," not the "aut – aut" corner; i.e., to him it's both nature and nurture, not either one or the other.)
Now, in Sir Laurence Olivier's interpretation of this passage – at least the way I understand it – the words "carrying the stamp of one defect" and "take corruption" are given precedence over "in the general censure;" in such a way that Hamlet's "one defect," his indecisiveness and Freudian guilt, does indeed taint and control his character in its entirety, "[his] virtues else – be they as pure as grace." In and of itself, that's not an understanding I'd want to take issue with; were it not that the passage immediately follows Hamlet's remarks on national prejudice. Since it does, however – and neither syntax nor grammar suggest a clear break between the soliloquy's two parts other than the topical move from the general to the individual (indeed, there is a greater contrast between the First Folio version, which is only concerned with wantonness and immorality, and the text of the Second Quarto, which appends this entire contemplation on the "stamp of one defect") – I'd accord "in the general censure" equal weight with the other cited phrases. This gives a different slant to the passage; Hamlet is thus not talking about the real weight of personal defects but merely the perceived one: "So oft it chances in particular men that, for some vicious mole of nature in them, ... these men carrying ... the stamp of one defect, their virtues else – be they as pure as grace, shall in the general censure take corruption from that particular fault."
Of course you might argue that none of this really matters all that much anyway, because during Hamlet's musings about that "stamp of one defect," his father's Ghost has entered the stage again ...
Copyright 2002 – 2009: Ulrike Böhm, all rights reserved.
