away from the complete mastery of this theory over our lexical minds is indicated by the change in the practice of the makers of the New English Dictionary from its early to its later volumes. Since the excellent work of Björkman, Flom, and Wall, a philological generation ago, some of the first claims of Skandinavian influence have been rejected. Professor Napier (History of the Holy Rood Tree, Notes, p. 38) has recovered for Old English the word die. Professor Manly has been saying for years that if Modern English bullock is from Old English bulluc, Modern English bull must be from Old English *bulle, and not from Skandinavian as has been claimed, even though *bulle has missed a writing-down in the Old English record. Let the case of leg be added; this word is quite generally considered to be a borrowing from Skandinavian. leggr; Germanic *lagjo-s, which gives Old Norse leggr, would also have produced Old English *legge, perfectly capable of furnishing us Modern English leg, without phonetic violence; but *legge is unrecorded in the restricted body of evidence of Old English we have. The reason why it is unrecorded may quite likely be the fact that in formal language it had upon it the mock-modesty taboo, as die carried, and still partly carries, the superstitious taboo. In the language, especially the written language, of how many users of English to-day are the words die, bull, and leg absent? On account of a taboo of one kind or another we probably miss many words from the Old English record that were in the Old English language. Determination of the conditions upon which taboo was based, in an age far removed from our own, is a difficult task of reconstruction.

Students of the English language should recognize the existence of an Old English vulgar, even if a great part of it never got into the later standard dialect; some of it unquestionably did, and it is probably not in the uncouth language of rustic dialects that all of it is to be sought and found. A rational hypothesis for non-recorded Old English forms and words should be practiced. With eagerness, we hypothesize a complete common Germanic language existent before the days of commonly practiced writing; and with freedom, we postulate common Old English forms and words existent before the days of commonly practiced writing. We have realized the narrow limitations as linguistic evidence of the Gothic language we have inherited; and possessing no example of

the vulgar Gothic that was written in the never-opened letter which the servant in George Gissing's Veranilda was directed by Marcian to carry to Totilla, we easily assume Gothic forms and words. But we seem to believe that, because a part of the Old English language succeeded in getting written down, we have no further need of hypothesis. In the work of English historical grammarians concerned with the English language after 700 A. D., we find fewtoo few asterisks.

The incompleteness of the written record as linguistic evidence Goethe expressed in this way: "Literatur ist das Fragment der Fragmente; das Wenigste, was geschah und gesprochen worden, ward geschrieben, von geschriebenen ist das Wenigste übrig geblieben" (Sprüche in Prosa, No. 350).

The University of Texas.

HAMLET PREPARES FOR ACTION

BY SAMUEL A. TANNENBAUM, M. D.

In a recent issue (April, 1917) of Studies in Philology Mr. Tucker Brooke puts forth the novel and ingenious theory that the justification for introducing "some seventy lines of melodramatic bombast," i. e., the Pyrrhus-Priam-Hecuba story (in Hamlet, II, 2, 431-498), is to be found in the effect they have upon Hamlet, namely, in dispelling the fit of "blues" caused by disappointment or excessive introspection, in momentarily unclouding his brain and effecting "a brief moment of clear vision." If this is true, Hamlet's soliloquy ("O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!") which immediately follows the actor's exit must be quite logical and free from neurotic or psychopathic taint and should give us the key to the reason for Hamlet's delay in executing vengeance upon his lecherous, treacherous, murderous uncle. If it is true (as Mr. Brooke tries to convince us) that "Hamlet is never more normal than at the end of this long and carefully prepared soliloquy we must agree with him, "keen and efficient thinker" that he is, in doubting "the trustworthiness of his supernatural visitant" and we must acquit him of attempting to evade his sacred duty by a bit of self-deception, by a subterfuge, by pretending to doubt the genuineness of the Ghost. In this "carefully prepared " soliloquy Mr. Brooke finds confirmation of Professor Bradley's theory of Hamlet's "melancholy" and, at the same time, " a wider intellectual range" than in any other soliloquy (except the seventh) in the play. For these reasons he insists that Hamlet's words about the possibility of the Ghost being the devil in disguise should not "be taken at less than their full face value."

To me this soliloquy and the circumstances surrounding it are thus all amiss interpreted. According to Mr. Brooke Hamlet has the "blues," is "in the lowest spirits he has shown," when the arrival of the strolling players is announced to him, and craves for strong excitement. "When the entertainment is over and Hamlet is left alone . . . he is in the position of a mountain climber long held inactive by befogging mist, when suddenly the cloud is dispelled and instantaneously he sees his course before him." In all this there are several serious errors. Hamlet is not "in the

lowest spirits he has shown" hitherto. He was much more despondent and life-weary when he longed for this too-too solid flesh to resolve itself into a dew and still more so after he heard the horrible tale of his uncle's treason, fratricide and incest. Nor does Hamlet seem to me to be suffering from the "blues" at this particular time. It is true that on this day he bid the fair Ophelia a long, unseemly and silent farewell, but when he meets the weak, fond, old man, her father, and fools him to the top of his bent, he seems, judging from his jocularity, his facetiousness, his insults, and his lewd allusions, to be quite reconciled to her loss. The encounter with the two simple and superficial "little eyases," Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, in which he indulges himself in a long and unprofitable discussion about the children players and in a rhapsody on mankind, leaves him in a state of exaltation marred only by a momentary bitterness when his mind suddenly reverts to the popularity of his uncle-father. The announcement of the arrival of the players at once dispels the gloom ("There did seem in him a kind of joy To hear of it") and his greeting to them manifests a buoyancy of spirits that puts the "blues" out of the question. Hamlet is never shown us in a happier frame of mind than he is at this moment. Thoughts of revenge are forgotten and once again and for the last time he is a boy, a student, an ardent devotee of the drama. What more natural than that, having at his command the tragedians of the city, he should want to hear his favorite speeches recited? It is not because he craves for excitement or because a play alleviates the blues that he wants the players to stay, but because he can't resist the temptation of the moment and, this probably wholly unconsciously, because for the time being it puts off the acting of the Ghost's dread command.

Although it is not of much relevance to our present discussion, we may point out that a person suffering from a momentary or fugitive attack of the blue devils does not crave for excitement or indulge in mirthful sarcasms or seek entertainment. One who craves for excitement is not despondent and surely not melancholic. The melancholic's interest is so self-centered that he cannot take any interest in what goes on about him; he refuses to be drawn out of himself. Hamlet is boyish and unhappy in this scene but not melancholic. That Hamlet is not in a state of normal mental health we admit, but his malady is neither the "blues" nor "melancholy."

Mr. Brooke is of the opinion that Shakespere chose that particular speech for the actor's recital because "the Pyrrhus-Priam-Hecuba story furnishes a kind of parallel to the Hamlet-Claudius-Gertrude story," because it serves as "an exciting bit of dramatic entertainment," and because "it continues the rather good-natured protest concerning the little eyases' by an obvious [!] parody of the turgid lines on the death of Priam" in Marlowe and Nashe's play of "Dido, Queen of Carthage." This may all be very well as far as Shakespere goes, but it leaves wholly unanswered a much more important and hitherto unconsidered question, videlicet: why did Hamlet want to hear "Aeneas' tale to Dido," a speech that, he tells us, he had heard but once. (Whether Hamlet had heard this unacted or at most only once-acted play before or after his father's death is as unascertainable as the date of his letter to Ophelia. As regards such details Shakespere was very careless.) If it had been merely that Hamlet wanted distraction or craved for excitement, or (which I do not admit) that Shakespere wanted to parody Nashe, or that he chose this method of depicting Hamlet's interest in dramatic art and his quality as a critic, many another speech would have served the poet's turn. Hamlet's interest in that "passionate speech" is the problem for us.

Since the publication of Professor Freud's fascinating and highly instructive book, "The Psychopathology of Every-day Life," we know that there is no accident in the domain of mental phenomena, that every thought that floats into an individual's consciousness is determined by conscious or unconscious forces in his soul. Hamlet is painfully conscious of the fact that for some inexplicable reason, notwithstanding that he was solicited thereto by heaven and hell, and has the cause, means, will, and strength to do it, he cannot bring himself to such a pitch of berserker rage as to plunge his fatal sword into the entrails of the villain who had murdered his father, seduced his mother, and "popped in between the election and his hopes." The student from Wittenberg, whose disposition is shaked with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls, cannot deliberately kill a human being, the paragon of animals. O, cursed spite that ever he was born to set it right! If only this thing were not to do, if he could only forget it! Not to think of his duty he must think of other matters. But the repressed thought of his painful duty unconsciously influences all his thoughts and actions.