ef, that on the
neck of the former came rushing upon me."

There arises here the difficulty that Shakspere's line had been
satisfactorily traced to AElian's[65] story of the Celtic practice of
rushing into the sea to resist a high tide with weapons; and the matter
must, I think, be left open until it can he ascertained whether the
statement concerning the Celts was available to Shakspere in any
translation or citation.[66]

Again, the phrase "Conscience doth make cowards of us all" is very like
the echo of two passages in the essay[67] OF CONSCIENCE: "Of such
marvellous working power is the sting of conscience: which often
induceth us to bewray, to accuse, and to combat ourselves"; "which as it
doth fill us with fear and doubt, so doth it store us with assurance and
trust;" and the lines about "the dread of something after death" might
point to the passage in the Fortieth Essay, in which Montaigne cites the
saying of Augustine that "Nothing but what follows death, makes death to
be evil" (_malam mortem non facit, nisi quod sequitur mortem_) cited by
Montaigne in order to dispute it. The same thought, too, is dealt with
in the essay[68] on A CUSTOM OF THE ISLE OF CEA, which contains a
passage suggestive of Hamlet's earlier soliloquy on self-slaughter. But,
for one thing, Hamlet's soliloquies are contrary in drift to Montaigne's
argument; and, for another, the phrase "Conscience makes cowards of us
all" existed in the soliloquy as it stood in the First Quarto, while the
gist of the idea is actually found twice in a previous play, where it
has a proverbial ring.[69] And "the _hope_ of something after death"
figures in the First Quarto also.

Finally, there are other sources than Montaigne for parts of the
soliloquy, sources nearer, too, than those which have been pointed to in
the Senecan tragedies. There is, indeed, as Dr. Cunliffe has pointed
out,[70] a broad correspondence between the whole soliloquy and the
chorus of women at the end of the second Act of the TROADES, where the
question of a life beyond is pointedly put:

"Verum est? an timidos fabula decepit,
Umbras corporibus vivere conditis?"

It is true that the choristers in Seneca pronounce definitely against
the future life:

"Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil....
Rumores vacui verbaque inania,
Et par sollicito fabula somnio."

But wherever in Christendom the pagan's words were discussed, the
Christian hypothesis would be pitted agains