Part 16

2. _The Cushitic or Ethiopian Family._--The nearest relative of Libyan is not Ancient Egyptian but the language of the nomadic Bisharin or Beja of the Nubian Desert (cf. H. Almkvist, _Die Bischari Sprache_, 1881 [the northern dialect], and L. Reinisch, _Die Bedauye Sprache_, 1893, _Worterbuch_, 1895). The speech of the peoples occupying the lowland east of Abyssinia, the Saho (Reinisch, grammar in _Zeitschrift d. deutschen morgenland. Gesellschaft_, 32, 1878; _Texte_, 1889; _Worterbuch_, 1890; cf. also Reinisch, Die Sprache der Irob Saho, 1878), and the Afar or Danakil (Reinisch, _Die Afar Sprache_, 1887; G. Colizza, _Lingua Afar_, 1887), merely dialects of one language, form the connecting link with the southern Hamitic group, i.e. Somali (Reinisch, _Somali Sprache_, 1900-1903, 3 vols.; Larajasse und de Sampont, _Practical Grammar of the Somali Language_, 1897; imperfect sketches by Hunter, 1880, and Schleicher, 1890), and Galla (L. Tutscheck, _Grammar_, 1845, _Lexicon_, 1844; Massaja, _Lectiones_, 1877; G. F. F. Praetorius, _Zur Grammatik der Gallasprache_, 1893, &c.). All these Cushitic languages, extending from Egypt to the equator, are separated by Reinisch as _Lower Cushitic_ from the _High Cushitic_ group, i.e. the many dialects spoken by tribes dwelling in the Abyssinian highlands or south of Abyssinia. Of the original inhabitants of Abyssinia, called collectively Agau (or Agau) by the Abyssinians, or Falashas (this name principally for Jewish tribes), Reinisch considers the Bilin or Bogos tribe as preserving the most archaic dialect (_Die Bilin Sprache_, Texts, 1883; _Grammatik_, 1882; _Worterbuch_, 1887); the same scholar gave sketches of the Khamir (1884) and Quara (1885) dialects. On other dialects, struggling against the spreading Semitic tongues (Tigre, Amharic, &c.), see Conti Rossini, "Appunti sulla lingua Khamta," in _Giorn. soc. orient._ (1905); Waldmeyer, _Wortersammlung_ (1868); J. Halevy, "Essai sur la langue Agaou" (_Actes soc. philologique_, 1873), &c. Similar dialects are those of the Sid(d)ama tribes, south of Abyssinia, of which only Kaf(f)a (Reinisch, _Die Kafa Sprache_, 1888) is known at all fully. Of the various other dialects (Kullo, Tambaro, &c.), vocabularies only are known; cf. Borelli, _Ethiopie meridionale_ (1890). (On Hausa see below.)

There is no question that the northernmost Hamitic languages have preserved best the original wealth of inflections which reminds us so strongly of the formal riches of southern Semitic. Libyan and Beja are the best-preserved types, and the latter especially may be called the Sanskrit of Hamitic. The other Cushitic tongues exhibit increasing agglutinative tendencies the farther we go south, although single archaisms are found even in Somali. The early isolated High Cushitic tongues (originally branched off from a stock common with Galla and Somali) diverge most strongly from the original type. Already the Agau dialects are full of very peculiar developments; the Hamitic character of the Sid(d)ama languages can be traced only by lengthy comparisons.

The simple and pretty Haus(s)a language, the commercial language of the whole Niger region and beyond (Schoen, _Grammar_, 1862, _Dictionary_, 1876; Charles H. Robinson, 1897, in Robinson and Brookes's _Dictionary_) has fairly well preserved its Hamitic grammar, though its vocabulary was much influenced by the surrounding Negro languages. It is no relative of Libyan (though it has experienced some Libyan influences), but comes from the (High ?) Cushitic family; its exact place in this family remains to be determined. Various languages of the Niger region _were_ once Hamitic like Haus(s)a, or at least under some Hamitic influence, but have now lost that character too far to be classified as Hamitic, e.g. the Muzuk or Musgu language (F. Muller, 1886). The often-raised question of some (very remote) relationship between Hamitic and the great Bantu family is still undecided; more doubtful is that with the interesting Ful (a) language in the western Sudan, but a relationship with the Nilotic branch of negro languages is impossible (though a few of these, e.g. Nuba, have borrowed some words from neighbouring Hamitic peoples). The development of a grammatical gender, this principal characteristic of Semito-Hamitic, in Bari and Masai, may be rather accidental than borrowed; certainly, the same phenomenon in Hottentot does not justify the attempt often made to classify this with Hamitic.

3. _Ancient Egyptian_, as we have seen, does not form the connecting link between Libyan and Cushitic which its geographical position would lead us to expect. It represents a third independent branch, or rather a second one, Libyan and Cushitic forming one division of Hamitic. A few resemblances with Libyan (M. de Rochemonteix in _Memoires du congres internat. des orientalistes_, Paris, 1873; elementary) are less due to original relationship than to the general better preservation of the northern idioms (see above). Frequent attempts to detach Egyptian from Hamitic and to attribute it to a Semitic immigration later than that of the other Hamites cannot be proved. Egyptian is, in many respects, more remote from Semitic than the Libyan-Cushitic division, being more agglutinative than the better types of its sister branch, having lost the most characteristic verbal flection (the Hamito-Semitic imperfect), forming the nominal plural in its own peculiar fashion, &c. The advantage of Egyptian, that it is represented in texts of 3000 B.C., while the sister tongues exist only in forms 5000 years later, allows us, e.g. to trace the Semitic principle of triliteral roots more clearly in Egyptian; but still the latter tongue is hardly more characteristically archaic or nearer Semitic than Beja or Kabylic.

All this is said principally of the grammar. Of the vocabulary it must not be forgotten that none of the Hamitic tongues remained untouched by Semitic influences after the separation of the Hamites and Semites, say 4000 or 6000 B.C. Repeated Semitic immigrations and influences have brought so many layers of loan-words that it is questionable if any modern Hamitic language has now more than 10% of original Hamitic words. Which Semitic resemblances are due to original affinity, which come from pre-Christian immigrations, which from later influences, are difficult questions not yet faced by science; e.g. the half-Arabic numerals of Libyan have often been quoted as a proof of primitive Hamito-Semitic kinship, but they are probably only a gift of some Arab invasion, prehistoric for us. Arab tribes seem to have repeatedly swept over the whole area of the Hamites, long before the time of Mahomet, and to have left deep impressions on races and languages, but none of these migrations stands in the full light of history (not even that of the Gee'z tribes of Abyssinia). Egyptian exhibits constant influences from its Canaanitish neighbours; it is crammed with such loan-words already in 3000 B.C.; new affluxes can be traced, especially c. 1600. (The Punic influences on Libyan are, however, very slight, inferior to the Latin.) Hence the relations of Semitic and Hamitic still require many investigations in detail, for which the works of Reinisch and Basset have merely built up a basis. (W. M. M.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] G. Sergi, _The Mediterranean Race. A Study of the Origin of European Peoples_ (London, 1901); _idem. Africa, Antropologia della stirpe camitica_ (Turin, 1897).

[2] Only works of higher linguistic standing are quoted here; many vocabularies and imperfect attempts of travellers cannot be enumerated.

HAMLET, the hero of Shakespeare's tragedy, a striking figure in Scandinavian romance.

The chief authority for the legend of Hamlet is Saxo Grammaticus, who devotes to it parts of the third and fourth books of his _Historia Danica_, written at the beginning of the 13th century. It is supposed that the story of Hamlet, Amleth or Amlothi,[1] was contained in the lost Skjoldunga saga, but we have no means of determining whether Saxo derived his information in this case from oral or written sources. The close parallels between the tale of Hamlet and the English romances of Havelok, Horn and Bevis of Hampton make it not unlikely that Hamlet is of British rather than of Scandinavian origin. His name does in fact occur in the Irish _Annals of the Four Masters_ (ed. O'Donovan, 1851) in a stanza attributed to the Irish Queen Gormflaith, who laments the death of her husband, Niall Glundubh, at the hands of Amhlaithe in 919 at the battle of Ath-Cliath. The slayer of Niall Glundubh is by other authorities stated to have been Sihtric. Now Sihtric was the father of that Olaf or Anlaf Cuaran who was the prototype of the English Havelok, but nowhere else does he receive the nickname of Amhlaithe. If Amhlaithe may really be identified with Sihtric, who first went to Dublin in 888, the relations between the tales of Havelok and Hamlet are readily explicable, since nothing was more likely than that the exploits of father and son should be confounded (see Havelok). But, whoever the historic Hamlet may have been, it is quite certain that much was added that was extraneous to Scandinavian tradition. Later in the 10th century there is evidence of the existence of an Icelandic saga of Amlothi or Amleth in a passage from the poet Snaebjorn in the second part of the prose _Edda_.[2] According to Saxo,[3] Hamlet's history is briefly as follows. In the days of Rorik, king of Denmark, Gervendill was governor of Jutland, and was succeeded by his sons Horvendill and Feng. Horvendill, on his return from a Viking expedition in which he had slain Koll, king of Norway, married Gerutha, Rorik's daughter, who bore him a son Amleth. But Feng, out of jealousy, murdered Horvendill, and persuaded Gerutha to become his wife, on the plea that he had committed the crime for no other reason than to avenge her of a husband by whom she had been hated. Amleth, afraid of sharing his father's fate, pretended to be imbecile, but the suspicion of Feng put him to various tests which are related in detail. Among other things they sought to entangle him with a young girl, his foster-sister, but his cunning saved him. When, however, Amleth slew the eavesdropper hidden, like Polonius, in his mother's room, and destroyed all trace of the deed, Feng was assured that the young man's madness was feigned. Accordingly he despatched him to England in company with two attendants, who bore a letter enjoining the king of the country to put him to death. Amleth surmised the purport of their instructions, and secretly altered the message on their wooden tablets to the effect that the king should put the attendants to death and give Amleth his daughter in marriage. After marrying the princess Amleth returned at the end of a year to Denmark. Of the wealth he had accumulated he took with him only certain hollow sticks filled with gold. He arrived in time for a funeral feast, held to celebrate his supposed death. During the feast he plied the courtiers with wine, and executed his vengeance during their drunken sleep by fastening down over them the woollen hangings of the hall with pegs he had sharpened during his feigned madness, and then setting fire to the palace. Feng he slew with his own sword. After a long harangue to the people he was proclaimed king. Returning to England for his wife he found that his father-in-law and Feng had been pledged each to avenge the other's death. The English king, unwilling personally to carry out his pledge, sent Amleth as proxy wooer for the hand of a terrible Scottish queen Hermuthruda, who had put all former wooers to death, but fell in love with Amleth. On his return to England his first wife, whose love proved stronger than her resentment, told him of her father's intended revenge. In the battle which followed Amleth won the day by setting up the dead men of the day before with stakes, and thus terrifying the enemy. He then returned with his two wives to Jutland, where he had to encounter the enmity of Wiglek, Rorik's successor. He was slain in a battle against Wiglek, and Hermuthruda, although she had engaged to die with him, married the victor.

The other Scandinavian versions of the tale are: the _Hrolfssaga Kraka_,[4] where the brothers Helgi and Hroar take the place of the hero; the tale of Harald and Halfdan, as related in the 7th book of Saxo Grammaticus; the modern Icelandic _Ambales Saga_,[5] a romantic tale the earliest MS. of which dates from the 17th century; and the folk-tale of Brjam[6] which was put in writing in 1707. Helgi and Hroar, like Harald and Halfdan, avenge their father's death on their uncle by burning him in his palace. Harald and Halfdan escape after their father's death by being brought up, with dogs' names, in a hollow oak, and subsequently by feigned madness; and in the case of the other brothers there are traces of a similar motive, since the boys are called by dogs' names. The methods of Hamlet's madness, as related by Saxo, seem to point to cynanthropy. In the _Ambales Saga_, which perhaps is collateral to, rather than derived from, Saxo's version, there are, besides romantic additions, some traits which point to an earlier version of the tale.

Saxo Grammaticus was certainly familiar with the Latin historians, and it is most probable that, recognizing the similarity between the northern Hamlet legend and the classical tale of Lucius Junius Brutus as told by Livy, by Valerius Maximus, and by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (with which he was probably acquainted through a Latin epitome), he deliberately added circumstances from the classical story. The incident of the gold-filled sticks could hardly appear fortuitously in both, and a comparison of the harangues of Amleth (Saxo, Book iv.) and of Brutus (Dionysius iv. 77) shows marked similarities. In both tales the usurping uncle is ultimately succeeded by the nephew who has escaped notice during his youth by a feigned madness. But the parts played by the personages who in Shakespeare became Ophelia and Polonius, the method of revenge, and the whole narrative of Amleth's adventure in England, have no parallels in the Latin story.

Dr. O. L. Jiriczek[7] first pointed out the striking similarities existing between the story of Amleth in Saxo and the other northern versions, and that of Kei Chosro in the _Shahnameh_ (Book of the King) of the Persian poet Firdausi. The comparison was carried farther by R. Zenker (_Boeve Amlethus_, pp. 207-268, Berlin and Leipzig, 1904), who even concluded that the northern saga rested on an earlier version of Firdausi's story, in which indeed nearly all the individual elements of the various northern versions are to be found. Further resemblances exist in the _Ambales Saga_ with the tales of Bellerophon, of Heracles, and of Servius Tullius. That Oriental tales through Byzantine and Arabian channels did find their way to the west is well known, and there is nothing very surprising in their being attached to a local hero.

The tale of Hamlet's adventures in Britain forms an episode so distinct that it was at one time referred to a separate hero. The traitorous letter, the purport of which is changed by Hermuthruda, occurs in the popular _Dit de l'empereur Constant_,[8] and in Arabian and Indian tales. Hermuthruda's cruelty to her wooers is common in northern and German mythology, and close parallels are afforded by Thrytho, the terrible bride of Offa I., who figures in _Beowulf_, and by Brunhilda in the _Nibelungenlied_.

The story of Hamlet was known to the Elizabethans in Francois de Belleforest's _Histoires tragiques_ (1559), and found its supreme expression in Shakespeare's tragedy. That as early as 1587 or 1589 Hamlet had appeared on the English stage is shown by Nash's preface to Greene's _Menaphon_: "He will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say, handfulls of tragical speeches." The Shakespearian Hamlet owes, however, little but the outline of his story to Saxo. In character he is diametrically opposed to his prototype. Amleth's madness was certainly altogether feigned; he prepared his vengeance a year beforehand, and carried it out deliberately and ruthlessly at every point. His riddling speech has little more than an outward similarity to the words of Hamlet, who resembles him, however, in his disconcerting penetration into his enemies' plans. For a discussion of Shakespeare's play and its immediate sources see SHAKESPEARE.

See an appendix to Elton's trans. of Saxo Grammaticus; I. Gollancz, _Hamlet in Iceland_ (London, 1898); H. L. Ward, _Catalogue of Romances_, under "Havelok," vol. i. pp. 423 seq.; _English Historical Review_, x. (1895); F. Detter, "Die Hamletsage," _Zeitschr. f. deut. Alter._ vol. 36 (Berlin, 1892); O. L. Jiriczek, "Die Amlethsage auf Island," in _Germanistische Abhandlungen_, vol. xii. (Breslau), and "Hamlet in Iran," in _Zeitschr. des Vereins fur Volkskunde_, x. (Berlin, 1900); A. Olrik, _Kilderne til Sakses Oldhistorie_ (Copenhagen, 2 vols., 1892-1894).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The word is used in modern Icelandic metaphorically of an imbecile or weak-minded person (see Cleasby and Vigfusson, _Icelandic-English Dictionary_, 1869).

[2] "'Tis said that far out, off yonder ness, the Nine Maids of the Island Mill stir amain the host--cruel skerry-quern--they who in ages past ground Hamlet's meal. The good Chieftain furrows the hull's lair with his ship's beaked prow." This passage may be compared with some examples of Hamlet's cryptic sayings quoted by Saxo: "Again, as he passed along the beach, his companions found the rudder of a ship which had been wrecked, and said they had discovered a huge knife. 'This,' said he, 'was the right thing to carve such a huge ham....' Also, as they passed the sand-hills, and bade him look at the meal, meaning the sand, he replied that it had been ground small by the hoary tempests of the ocean."

[3] Books iii. and iv., chaps. 86-106, Eng. trans. by O. Elton (London, 1894).

[4] Printed in Fornaldar Sogur Northtrlanda (vol. i. Copenhagen, 1829), analysed by F. Detter in _Zeitschr. fur deutsches Altertum_ (vol. 36, Berlin, 1892).

[5] Printed with English translation and with other texts germane to the subject by I. Gollancz (_Hamlet in Iceland_, London, 1898).

[6] Professor I. Gollancz points out (p. lxix.) that Brjam is a variation of the Irish Brian, that the relations between Ireland and the Norsemen were very close, and that, curiously enough, Brian Boroimhe was the hero of that very battle of Clontarf (1014) where the device (which occurs in Havelok and Hamlet) of bluffing the enemy by tying the wounded to stakes to represent active soldiers was used.

[7] "Hamlet in Iran," in _Zeitschrift des Vereins fur Volkskunde_, x. (Berlin, 1900).

[8] See A. B. Gough, _The Constance Saga_ (Berlin, 1902).

HAMLEY, SIR EDWARD BRUCE (1824-1893), British general and military writer, youngest son of Vice-Admiral William Hamley, was born on the 27th of April 1824 at Bodmin, Cornwall, and entered the Royal Artillery in 1843. He was promoted captain in 1850, and in 1851 went to Gibraltar, where he commenced his literary career by contributing articles to magazines. He served throughout the Crimean campaign as aide-de-camp to Sir Richard Dacres, commanding the artillery, taking part in all the operations with distinction, and becoming successively major and lieutenant-colonel by brevet. He also received the C.B. and French and Turkish orders. During the war he contributed to _Blackwood's Magazine_ an admirable account of the progress of the campaign, which was afterwards republished. The combination in Hamley of literary and military ability secured for him in 1859 the professorship of military history at the new Staff College at Sandhurst, from which in 1866 he went to the council of military education, returning in 1870 to the Staff College as commandant. From 1879 to 1881 he was British commissioner successively for the delimitation of the frontiers of Turkey and Bulgaria, Turkey in Asia and Russia, and Turkey and Greece, and was rewarded with the K.C.M.G. Promoted colonel in 1863, he became a lieutenant-general in 1882, when he commanded the 2nd division of the expedition to Egypt under Lord Wolseley, and led his troops in the battle of Tell-el-Kebir, for which he received the K.C.B., the thanks of parliament, and 2nd class of Osmanieh. Hamley considered that his services in Egypt had been insufficiently recognized in Lord Wolseley's despatches, and expressed his indignation freely, but he had no sufficient ground for supposing that there was any intention to belittle his services. From 1885 until his death on the 12th of August 1893 he represented Birkenhead in parliament in the Conservative interest.

Hamley was a clever and versatile writer. His principal work, _The Operations of War_, published in 1867, became a text-book of military instruction. He published some pamphlets on national defence, was a frequent contributor to magazines, and the author of several novels, of which perhaps the best known is _Lady Lee's Widowhood_.

HAMLIN, HANNIBAL (1809-1891), vice-president of the United States (1861-1865), was born at Paris, Maine, on the 27th of August 1809. After studying in Hebron Academy, he conducted his father's farm for a time, became schoolmaster, and later managed a weekly newspaper at Paris. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1833, and rapidly acquired a reputation as an able lawyer and a good public speaker. Entering politics as an anti-slavery Democrat, he was a member of the state House of Representatives in 1836-1840, serving as its presiding officer during the last four years. He was a representative in Congress from 1843 to 1847, and was a member of the United States Senate from 1848 to 1856. From the very beginning of his service in Congress he was prominent as an opponent of the extension of slavery; he was a conspicuous supporter of the Wilmot Proviso, spoke against the Compromise Measures of 1850, and in 1856, chiefly because of the passage in 1854 of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which repealed the Missouri Compromise, and his party's endorsement of that repeal at the Cincinnati Convention two years later, he withdrew from the Democrats and joined the newly organized Republican party. The Republicans of Maine nominated him for governor in the same year, and having carried the election by a large majority he was inaugurated in this office on the 8th of January 1857. In the latter part of February, however, he resigned the governorship, and was again a member of the Senate from 1857 to January 1861. From 1861 to 1865, during the Civil War, he was Vice-President of the United States. While in this office he was one of the chief advisers of President Lincoln, and urged both the Emancipation Proclamation and the arming of the negroes. After the war he again served in the Senate (1869-1881), was minister to Spain (1881-1883), and then retired from public life. He died at Bangor, Maine, on the 4th of July 1891.

See _Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1899), by C. E. Hamlin, his grandson.

HAMM, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia, on the Lippe, 19 m. by rail N.E. from Dortmund on the main line Cologne-Hanover. Pop. (1905) 38,430. It is surrounded by pleasant promenades occupying the site of the former engirdling fortifications. The principal buildings are four Roman Catholic and three Evangelical churches, several schools and an infirmary. The town is flourishing and rapidly increasing, and possesses very extensive wire factories (in connexion with which there are puddling and rolling works), machine works, and manufactories of gloves, baskets, leather, starch, chemicals, varnish, oil and beer. Near the town are some thermal baths.

Hamm, which became a town about the end of the 12th century, was originally the capital of the countship of Mark, and was fortified in 1226. It became a member of the Hanseatic League. In 1614 it was besieged by the Dutch, and it was several times taken and retaken during the Thirty Years' War. In 1666 it came into the possession of Brandenburg. In 1761 and 1762 it was bombarded by the French, and in 1763 its fortifications were dismantled.