e young prince abruptly announced
his intention to go abroad, neither the king nor the queen placed
impediments in his way, though, some months previously, they had both
protested strongly against his returning to Wittenberg.

The small-fry of the court knew nothing of Prince Hamlet's determination
until he had sailed from Elsinore; their knowledge then was confined to
the fact of his departure. It was only to Horatio, his fellow-student
and friend, that Hamlet confided the real cause of his self-imposed
exile, though perhaps Ophelia half suspected it.

Polonius had dropped an early hint to his daughter concerning Hamlet's
intent. She knew that everything was over between them, and the night
before he embarked Ophelia placed in the prince's hand the few letters
and trinkets he had given her, repeating, as she did so, a certain
distich which somehow haunted Hamlet's memory for several days after he
was on shipboard:

"Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind."

"These could never have waxed poor," said Hamlet softly to himself, as
he leaned over the taffrail, the third day out, spreading the trinkets
in his palm, "being originally of but little worth. I fancy that that
allusion to 'rich gifts' was a trifle malicious on the part of the fair
Ophelia;" and he quietly dropped them into the sea.

It was as a Danish gentleman voyaging for pleasure, and for mental
profit also, if that should happen, that Hamlet set forth on his
travels. Settled destination he had none, his sole plan being to get
clear of Denmark as speedily as possible, and then to drift whither his
fancy took him. His fancy naturally took him southward, as it would
have taken him northward if he had been a Southron. Many a time while
climbing the bleak crags around Elsinore he had thought of the land of
the citron and the palm; lying on his couch at night, and listening to
the wind as it howled along the machicolated battlements of the castle,
his dreams had turned from the cold, blonde ladies of his father's court
to the warmer beauties that ripen under sunny skies. He was free now to
test the visions of his boyhood.

So it chanced, after various wanderings, all tending imperceptibly in
one direction, that Hamlet bent his steps towards Italy.

In those rude days one did not accomplish a long journey without having
wonderful adventures befall, or encountering divers perils by the way.
It was a perio