is that Shakespeare's real reason for
breaking his rule here was simply that he did not choose to deprive
Hamlet of verse on his last appearance. I wonder the disuse of prose in
these two scenes has not been observed, and used as an argument, by
those who think that Hamlet, with the commission in his pocket, is now
resolute.]

[Footnote 249: The verse-speech of the Doctor, which closes this scene,
lowers the tension towards that of the next scene. His introductory
conversation with the Gentlewoman is written in prose (sometimes very
near verse), partly, perhaps, from its familiar character, but chiefly
because Lady Macbeth is to speak in prose.]

NOTE A.

EVENTS BEFORE THE OPENING OF THE ACTION IN _HAMLET_.

In Hamlet's first soliloquy he speaks of his father as being 'but two
months dead,--nay, not so much, not two.' He goes on to refer to the
love between his father and mother, and then says (I. ii. 145):

and yet, within a month--
Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears, why she, even she--
O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle.

It seems hence to be usually assumed that at this time--the time when
the action begins--Hamlet's mother has been married a little less than a
month.

On this assumption difficulties, however, arise, though I have not found
them referred to. Why has the Ghost waited nearly a month since the
marriage before showing itself? Why has the King waited nearly a month
before appearing in public for the first time, as he evidently does in
this scene? And why has Laertes waited nearly a month since the
coronation before asking leave to return to France (I. ii. 53)?

To this it might be replied that the marriage and the coronation were
separated by some weeks; that, while the former occurred nearly a month
before the time of this scene, the latter has only just taken place; and
that what the Ghost cannot bear is, not the mere marriage, but the
accession of an incestuous murderer to the throne. But anyone who will
read the King's speech at the opening of the scene will certainly
conclude that the marriage has only just been celebrated, and also that
it is conceived as involving the accession of Claudius to the throne.
Gertrude is described as the