or the question whether
the two courtiers were aware of the contents of the commission they bore
to England.]

[Footnote 61: This passage in _Hamlet_ seems to have been in Heywood's
mind when, in _The Second Part of the Iron Age_ (Pearson's reprint, vol.
iii., p. 423), he makes the Ghost of Agamemnon appear in order to
satisfy the doubts of Orestes as to his mother's guilt. No reader could
possibly think that this Ghost was meant to be an hallucination; yet
Clytemnestra cannot see it. The Ghost of King Hamlet, I may add, goes
further than that of Agamemnon, for he is audible, as well as visible,
to the privileged person.]

[Footnote 62: I think it is clear that it is this fear which stands in
the way of the obvious plan of bringing Hamlet to trial and getting him
shut up or executed. It is much safer to hurry him off to his doom in
England before he can say anything about the murder which he has somehow
discovered. Perhaps the Queen's resistance, and probably Hamlet's great
popularity with the people, are additional reasons. (It should be
observed that as early as III. i. 194 we hear of the idea of 'confining'
Hamlet as an alternative to sending him to England.)]

[Footnote 63: I am inferring from IV. vii., 129, 130, and the last words
of the scene.]

[Footnote 64: III. iv. 172:

For this same lord,
I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister:

_i.e._ the scourge and minister of 'heaven,' which has a plural sense
elsewhere also in Shakespeare.]

[Footnote 65: IV. iii. 48:

_Ham._ For England!

_King._ Ay, Hamlet.

_Ham._ Good.

_King._ So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

_Ham._ I see a cherub that sees them.]

[Footnote 66: On this passage see p. 98. Hamlet's reply to Horatio's
warning sounds, no doubt, determined; but so did 'I know my course.' And
is it not significant that, having given it, he abruptly changes the
subject?]

[Footnote 67: P. 102.]

[Footnote 68: It should be observed also that many of Hamlet's
repetitions can hardly be said to occur at moments of great emotion,
like Cordelia's 'And so I am, I am,' and 'No cause, no cause.'

Of course, a habit of repetition quite as marked as Hamlet's may be
found in comic persons, _e.g._ Justice Shallow in _2 Henry IV._]

[Footnote 69: Perhaps it