bles; meet it is I set it downe,[6]
[Sidenote: My tables, meet]
That one may smile, and smile and be a Villaine;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmarke; [Sidenote: I am]
So Vnckle there you are: now to my word;[7]
It is; Adue, Adue, Remember me:[8] I haue sworn't.
[Sidenote: _Enter Horatio, and Marcellus_]

_Hor. and Mar. within_. My Lord, my Lord. [Sidenote: _Hora._ My]

_Enter Horatio and Marcellus._

_Mar_. Lord _Hamlet_.

_Hor_. Heauen secure him. [Sidenote: Heauens]

_Mar_. So be it.

_Hor_. Illo, ho, ho, my Lord.

_Ham_. Hillo, ho, ho, boy; come bird, come.[9]
[Sidenote: boy come, and come.]

_Mar_. How ist't my Noble Lord?

_Hor_. What newes, my Lord?

_Ham_. Oh wonderfull![10]

_Hor_. Good my Lord tell it.

_Ham_. No you'l reueale it. [Sidenote: you will]

_Hor_. Not I, my Lord, by Heauen.

_Mar_. Nor I, my Lord.

_Ham_. How say you then, would heart of man once think it?
But you'l be secret?

[Footnote 1: For the moment he has no doubt that he has seen and spoken
with the ghost of his father.]

[Footnote 2: his head.]

[Footnote 3: The whole speech is that of a student, accustomed to books,
to take notes, and to fix things in his memory. 'Table,' _tablet_.]

[Footnote 4: _wise sayings_.]

[Footnote 5: The Ghost has revealed her adultery: Hamlet suspects her of
complicity in the murder, 168.]

[Footnote 6: It may well seem odd that Hamlet should be represented as,
at such a moment, making a note in his tablets; but without further
allusion to the student-habit, I would remark that, in cases where
strongest passion is roused, the intellect has yet sometimes an
automatic trick of working independently. For instance from Shakspere,
see Constance in _King John_--how, in her agony over the loss of her
son, both her fancy, playing with words, and her imagination, playing
with forms, are busy.

Note the glimpse of Hamlet's character here given: he had been something
of an optimist; at least had known villainy only from books; at thirty
years of age it is to him a discovery that a man may smile and be a
villain! Then think of the shock of such discoveries as are here forced
upon him! Villainy is no longer a mere idea, but a fact! and of all
villainous deeds those of his own mother and uncle are the wors