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PAGE 107
EXPLANATION OF HAMLET'S MYSTERY
their elders. The senile nonentity, concealed behind a show
of fussy pomposity, who has developed a rare capacity to bore
his audience with the repetition of sententious platitudes in
which profound ignorance of life is but thinly disguised by a
would-be worldly-wise air; the prying busybody whose med-
dling is, as usual, excused by his "well-meaning" intentions,
constitutes a figure that is sympathetic only to those who sub-
missively accept the world's estimate concerning the superiority
of the merely decrepit.
The second disturbing factor is that due to the interweaving
of the main theme of jealousy and incest between parent and
child with other allied ones of a similar kind. We noted above
that in the simplest form of decomposition of the paternal
attributes the tyrannical rôle is most often relegated to the
grandfather. It is no mere chance that this is so, and it is not
fully to be accounted for by incompleteness of the decomposi-
tion. There is a deeper reason why the grandfather is most
often chosen to play the part of tyrant, and this will be readily
perceived when we recollect the large number of legends in
which he has previously interposed all manner of obstacles to
the marriage of his daughter. He opposes the advances of
the would-be suitor, sets in his way various apparently impos-
sible tasks and conditions--usually these are miraculously car-
ried out by the lover,--and even locks up his daughter in an
inaccessible spot, as in the legends of Gilgamos, Perseus, Rom-
ulus, Telephos and others. The motive is at bottom that he
grudges to give up his daughter to another man, not wishing
to part with her himself (Father-daughter complex). When
his commands are disobeyed or circumvented, his love for
his daughter turns to bitterness, and he pursues her and
her offspring with insatiable hate. We are here once more re-
minded of events that may be observed in daily life by those
who open their eyes to the facts. When the grandson in the
myth avenges himself and his mother by slaying her tyran-
nical father, it is as though he clearly realised the motive of
the persecution, for in truth he slays the man who endeavoured
to possess and retain the mother's affection; thus in this sense
we again come back to the father, and see that from the hero's
point of view the distinction between the father and grand-
father is not so radical as it at first sight appears. We perceive,
therefore, that for two reasons the resolution of the original
parent into a kind father and a tyrannical grandfather is not a
very extensive one.
The foregoing considerations throw more light on the figure
of Polonius in the present legend. In his attitude towards the
relation between Ophelia and Hamlet are many of the traits
that we have just mentioned to be characteristic of the Father-
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