eat power may give thee feeling of its value,
seeing the scar of my vengeance has hardly yet had time to heal.']

[Footnote 5: 'and thy fear uncompelled by our presence, pays homage to
us.']

[Footnote 6: 'set down to cool'; 'set in the cold.']

[Footnote 7: _mandate_: 'Where's Fulvia's process?' _Ant. and Cl._, act
i. sc. 1. _Shakespeare Lexicon_.]

[Footnote 8: _hectic fever--habitual_ or constant fever.]

[Footnote 9: 'whatever my fortunes.']

[Footnote 10: The original, the _Quarto_ reading--'_my ioyes will nere
begin_' seems to me in itself better, and the cause of the change to be
as follows.

In the _Quarto_ the next scene stands as in our modern editions, ending
with the rime,

o from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth. _Exit_.

This was the act-pause, the natural end of act iii.

But when the author struck out all but the commencement of the scene,
leaving only the three little speeches of Fortinbras and his captain,
then plainly the act-pause must fall at the end of the preceding scene.
He therefore altered the end of the last verse to make it rime with the
foregoing, in accordance with his frequent way of using a rime before an
important pause.

It perplexes us to think how on his way to the vessel, Hamlet could fall
in with the Norwegian captain. This may have been one of Shakspere's
reasons for striking the whole scene out--but he had other and more
pregnant reasons.]

[Footnote 11: Here is now the proper close of the _Third Act_.]

[Footnote 12: _Commencement of the Fourth Act._

Between the third and the fourth passes the time Hamlet is away; for the
latter, in which he returns, and whose scenes are _contiguous_, needs no
more than one day.]

[Footnote 13: 'claims a convoy in fulfilment of the king's promise to
allow him to march over his kingdom.' The meaning is made plainer by the
correspondent passage in the _1st Quarto_:

Tell him that _Fortenbrasse_ nephew to old _Norway_,
Craues a free passe and conduct ouer his land,
According to the Articles agreed on:]

[Footnote 14: 'where to rejoin us.']

[Page 192]

If that his Maiesty would ought with vs,
We shall expresse our dutie in his eye,[1]
And let[2] him know so.

_Cap._ I will doo't, my Lord.

_For._ Go safely[3] on. _Exit._ [Sidenote: softly]

[A]

[4] _Enter Queene and Horatio_.
[Sidenote: _Enter Horatio, Gertrard, an