Hamlet Solved #8
What does Hamlet mean when he says that he wants to "melt"--and become "a dew"?
In his very first soliloquy, he calls on God. He even refers to God as "the Everlasting".
This is a clue that Hamlet's language and ideas are derived from the Bible. As is so often the case with Shakespeare, faith is the key to unlock his real meaning.
Hamlet first makes a pun with the word "solid":
HAMLET
Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God, God!
This can be translated as:
Oh, if only my body would melt and thaw, and become a dew--or if only God had not forbidden suicide.
Hamlet is saying that he wants to evaporate, which is to say that he wants to die. He would kill himself, but God has prohibited suicide.
In my last post (Hamlet Solved #7), I revealed that when Hamlet says "solid flesh" he actually means that his body has been "Saul-èd".
Hamlet is comparing himself to David, whom King Saul abused and hunted.
King Saul was the very first king of Israel. Hamlet is suggesting that kings have not gotten any better over time. Claudius is another Saul, and he has assaulted Hamlet.
This is Hamlet's way of saying that his uncle Claudius has been so bad to him, that it has transformed Hamlet from a happy person into a person who wants to die.
So, in this context, what does "melt" into "a dew" mean?
If we look to the Bible, we find references to melting flesh. In Zechariah, there is an apocalyptic plague that God inflicted on enemies of Jerusalem:
"And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away"
14:12 KJV
Since Hamlet is comparing himself to David, it is very likely that he is also thinking of a psalm which David wrote.
It begins with David's calling on God:
Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: let them also that hate him flee before him.
As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
68:1-2 KJV
Perhaps when Hamlet speaks of melting, he is thinking of how people can melt like wax, from an apocalyptic fire from God.
The Book of Enoch was not in the Bible, but it was well known in Shakespeare's time.
In the First Book of Enoch, there are images of hills and mountains melting because of God's wrathful power, His divine judgment.
The people in Shakespeare's audience, in 1601, believed in that kind of God. That is the kind of divine judgment that they feared, in their love for God.
Hamlet is asking for God to arise, in Denmark. He is summoning him, apparently because he believes that the death of Hamlet's father is evidence that God has been absent.
As a playwright, Shakespeare is asking for God to arise in the minds of the people of his audience.
Even though God is never seen on stage, from this moment--only the second scene of the play--God is present in the life of Hamlet, and present in the minds of the audience members.
Taken together, these allusions to Zechariah, Psalm 68, and Enoch, paint a terrifying image of an apocalyptic punishment from God. For anyone in Shakespeare's audience with a heavy conscience, these words might have caused real panic.
But does Shakespeare do this just to make his audience fearful of God?
No.
In the Book of Isaiah--one of the Books of the Prophets--there is a different, and even hopeful, idea of melting.
In one verse, Isaiah speaks of a dew that is good. It even represents resurrection and life, for righteous people who have died:
Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.
26:19 KJV
So, Hamlet is not only speaking about God's wrathful and fearsome power to melt mountains and people. He is also speaking about God's loving and awesome power to resurrect people.
Like so many words and lines that Shakespeare wrote in his career, there is often more than one meaning or interpretation.
His meaning is more clear when we realize that melting into a dew is yet another pun.
Hamlet says that he wants his body to evaporate and "resolve itself into a dew"--when he is also saying that he wants his body to evaporate and "resolve itself into adieu".
"A dew" also means "adieu."
When spoken aloud, in the time of Shakespeare, it would have been almost impossible to tell the difference between "a dew" and "adieu."
The word "adieu" means "to God."
Hamlet wants to die and go to God, to be with God, to be united with God.
In other words, Hamlet knows that death can lead to rebirth--especially since he considers himself a righteous person.
These are some of the most apocalyptic words spoken in all of Shakespeare's works. Hamlet is creating a vision of complete submission to God, and a renunciation of life and this world.
It is interesting to compare this to what is written in the earlier First Quarto from 1603:
HAMLET
O that this too much grieved and sallied flesh
Would melt to nothing, or that the universal
Globe of heaven would turn all to chaos!
In this earlier version of the play, Hamlet is more explicit. He is not talking about any apocalypse, or just a mere catastrophe.
He is talking about the Apocalypse--the very end of the world.
So, at the beginning of the play, Hamlet wants to die. As if in prayer to God, he speaks aloud--asking God to end the whole world, and him with it.
Or put another way, Hamlet wants his life to be over, and all of history to end, immediately. He wants his own suffering to end, and the suffering of all of the people of the world to end.
What is fascinating is that in this 1603 text, Hamlet believes that he is going to melt and become "nothing." He also says that there will be "chaos."
That is a very pessimistic and sad view of the end of the world.
Shakespeare must have had a change of mind. He did not want Hamlet to express such a negative view of death and the Apocalypse.
In the later 1604 text, Hamlet sees the end of the world as becoming one with God--which is the opposite of "nothing." It would be becoming part of everything.
He is not dissolving into nothingness, but rather into the vastness and abundance that God represents--into God's loving embrace.
By using a word like "adieu" Hamlet does not see "chaos"--he sees a certain deliverance and freedom by becoming united with God.
As dark and as grim as Hamlet seems to be, by saying that he wants to die, and to have the world end--he is also saying that such a death and such an end to the world is a very good thing.
Because that end, that death, is the beginning of a new life, forever with God.
It would be "To die, to sleep—No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished!"
In Hamlet's very first soliloquy, he is yearning to melt and be one with God--and he repeats this later on in his most famous soliloquy, when he speaks of a consummation that he wishes for most devoutly.
Zechariah uses the words "consume away" to describe melting flesh--which Hamlet has in mind when he speaks of a "consummation."
In the very first scene in the Hamlet play, Horatio speaks about "doomsday". I wrote about this in my Hamlet Solved #3 post.
Hamlet was not with Horatio, when he said these lines. But it is clear, by scene 2, that Hamlet senses that the end is nigh.
Shakespeare plants the idea at the very beginning of the play, to remind us that the end times are coming soon. For people of little faith, this can be a terrifying idea. For people of faith, it is a cause for great excitement and hope.
In my Hamlet Solved #6 post, I wrote about Horatio's line about how dead people rose from their graves right before Julius Caesar’s death.
This line echoes Scripture, regarding the dead who came back to life, when Jesus died, crucified on the cross.
Those same people would rise from their graves—after His resurrection.
Therefore, Shakespeare was not just offering fearful warnings about death, in his Hamlet play.
He was also offering a hopeful and positive message of life, and rebirth.
Cheers,