[Sidenote: much speede as]
_death[10] I haue words to speake in your eare, will_
[Sidenote: in thine eare]

[Footnote 1: 'formal ostentation'--show or publication of honour
according to form or rule.]

[Footnote 2: 'so that I must call in question'--institute inquiry; or
'--_that_ (these things) I must call in question.']

[Footnote 3: Note such a half line frequently after the not uncommon
closing couplet--as if to take off the formality of the couplet, and
lead back, through the more speech-like, to greater verisimilitude.]

[Footnote 4: Here the servant goes, and the rest of the speech Horatio
speaks _solus_. He had expected to hear from Hamlet.]

[Footnote 5: 'and it please'--_if it please_. _An_ for _if_ is merely
_and_.]

[Footnote 6: 'I am told.']

[Footnote 7: _Not in Q_.]

[Footnote 8: This gives an approximate clue to the time between the
second and third acts: it needs not have been a week.]

[Footnote 9: Note once more the unfailing readiness of Hamlet where
there was no question as to the fitness of the action seemingly
required. This is the man who by too much thinking, forsooth, has
rendered himself incapable of action!--so far ahead of the foremost
behind him, that, when the pirate, not liking such close quarters, 'on
the instant got clear,' he is the only one on her deck! There was no
question here as to what ought to be done: the pirate grappled them; he
boarded her. Thereafter, with his prompt faculty for dealing with men,
he soon comes to an understanding with his captors, and they agree, upon
some certain condition, to put him on shore.

He writes in unusual spirits; for he has now gained full, presentable,
and indisputable proof of the treachery which before he scarcely
doubted, but could not demonstrate. The present instance of it has to do
with himself, not his father, but in itself would justify the slaying of
his uncle, whose plausible way had possibly perplexed him so that he
could not thoroughly believe him the villain he was: bad as he must be,
could he actually have killed his own brother, and _such_ a brother? A
better man than Laertes might have acted more promptly than Hamlet, and
so happened to _do_ right; but he would not have _been_ right, for the
proof was _not_ sufficient.]

[Footnote 10: The value Hamlet sets on his discovery, evident in his
joyous urgency to share it with his friend, is explicable only