Maria speaking of Longaville:
Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will,
Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills
Is should none spare that come within his power.
He is very bright and smart, yet his will is weak, he has no power to act.
Shakespeare is taking a character that he knows very well and placing him in another one of his plays. This time the purpose is quite different but none the less one can find Hamlet in Love's Labor's Lost. Granted this is just a view of Longaville in act II.
Hamlet is a genius of wit yet cannot find courage for action, here is an example. Hamlet views an army of men going to die and fight for a piece of worthless ground in the name of honor yet he with a father murdered has yet to act.
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men
That for a fantasy and trick of fame
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
No comments:
Post a Comment