-'.]

[Footnote 3: Here comes in the _Quarto, 'Enter a Courtier_.' All from
this point to 'Peace, who comes heere?' included, is in addition to the
_Quarto_ text--not in the _Q._, that is.]

[Footnote 4: I would here refer my student to the soliloquy--with its
_sea of troubles_, and _the taking of arms against it_. 123, n. 4.]

[Footnote 5: These three questions: 'Does it not stand me now
upon?'--'Is't not perfect conscience?'--'Is't not to be damned?' reveal
the whole relation between the inner and outer, the unseen and the seen,
the thinking and the acting Hamlet. 'Is not the thing right?--Is it not
my duty?--Would not the neglect of it deserve damnation?' He is
satisfied.]

[Footnote 6: 'is it not a thing to be damned--to let &c.?' or, 'would it
not be to be damned, (to be in a state of damnation, or, to bring
damnation on oneself) to let this human cancer, the king, go on to
further evil?']

[Footnote 7: '--so you have not much time.']

[Footnote 8: 'True, it will be short, but till then is mine, and will be
long enough for me.' He is resolved.]

[Footnote 9: Now that he is assured of what is right, the Shadow that
waits him on the path to it, has no terror for him. He ceases to be
anxious as to 'what dreams may come,' as to the 'something after death,'
as to 'the undiscovered country,' the moment his conscience is
satisfied. 120. It cannot now make a coward of him. It was never in
regard to the past that Hamlet dreaded death, but in regard to the
righteousness of the action which was about to occasion his death. Note
that he expects death; at least he has long made up his mind to the
great risk of it--the death referred to in the soliloquy--which, after
all, was not that which did overtake him. There is nothing about suicide
here, nor was there there.]

[Footnote 10: 'a man's life must soon be over anyhow.']

[Footnote 11: The approach of death causes him to think of and regret
even the small wrongs he has done; he laments his late behaviour to
Laertes, and makes excuse for him: the similarity of their condition,
each having lost a father by violence, ought, he says, to have taught
him gentleness with him. The _1st Quarto_ is worth comparing here:--

_Enter Hamlet and Horatio_

_Ham_. Beleeue mee, it greeues mee much _Horatio_,
That to _Leartes_ I forgot my selfe:
For by my selfe me thinkes I feele his griefe,
Though there's a difference in each others wrong.]

[Footnote 12: 'I w