_Qu_. Haue you forgot me?[7] [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham_. No by the Rood, not so:
You are the Queene, your Husbands Brothers wife,
But would you were not so. You are my Mother.[8]
[Sidenote: And would it were]

_Qu_. Nay, then Ile set those to you that can speake.[9]
[Sidenote: _Ger_.]

_Ham_. Come, come, and sit you downe, you shall not boudge:
You go not till I set you vp a glasse,
Where you may see the inmost part of you? [Sidenote: the most part]

_Qu_. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murther [Sidenote: _Ger_.]
me?[10] Helpe, helpe, hoa. [Sidenote: Helpe how.]

_Pol_. What hoa, helpe, helpe, helpe. [Sidenote: What how helpe.]

_Ham_. How now, a Rat? dead for a Ducate, dead.[11]

[Footnote 1: _The Quarto has not_ 'with him.']

[Footnote 2: _He goes behind the arras._]

[Footnote 3: _The Quarto has not this speech._]

[Footnote 4: _Not in Quarto._]

[Footnote 5: _1st Q._

_Ham_. Mother, mother, O are you here?
How i'st with you mother?

_Queene_ How i'st with you?

_Ham_, I'le tell you, but first weele make all safe.

Here, evidently, he bolts the doors.]

[Footnote 6: _1st Q._

_Queene_ How now boy?

_Ham_. How now mother! come here, sit downe, for you
shall heare me speake.]

[Footnote 7: --'that you speak to me in such fashion?']

[Footnote 8: _Point thus_: 'so: you'--'would you were not so, for you
are _my_ mother.'--_with emphasis on_ 'my.' The whole is spoken sadly.]

[Footnote 9: --'speak so that you must mind them.']

[Footnote 10: The apprehension comes from the combined action of her
conscience and the notion of his madness.]

[Footnote 11: There is no precipitancy here--only instant resolve and
execution. It is another outcome and embodiment of Hamlet's rare faculty
for action, showing his delay the more admirable. There is here neither
time nor call for delay. Whoever the man behind the arras might be, he
had, by spying upon him in the privacy of his mother's room, forfeited
to Hamlet his right to live; he had heard what he had said to his
mother, and his death was necessary; for, if he left the room, Hamlet's
last chance of fulfilling his vow to the Ghost was gone: if the play had
not sealed, what he had now spoken must seal his doom. But the decree
had in fact already gone forth again