will deal with this idea in a
separate note, and will only add here that, though it is quite possible
that Shakespeare never imagined any of these matters clearly, and so
produced these unimportant difficulties, we ought not to assume this
without examination.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 250: This is intrinsically not probable, and is the more
improbable because in Q1 Hamlet's letter to Ophelia (which must have
been written before the action of the play begins) is signed 'Thine ever
the most unhappy Prince _Hamlet_.' 'Unhappy' _might_ be meant to
describe an unsuccessful lover, but it probably shows that the letter
was written after his father's death.]

NOTE B.

WHERE WAS HAMLET AT THE TIME OF HIS FATHER'S DEATH?

The answer will at once be given: 'At the University of Wittenberg. For
the king says to him (I. ii. 112):

For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire.

The Queen also prays him not to go to Wittenberg: and he consents to
remain.'

Now I quite agree that the obvious interpretation of this passage is
that universally accepted, that Hamlet, like Horatio, was at Wittenberg
when his father died; and I do not say that it is wrong. But it involves
difficulties, and ought not to be regarded as certain.

(1) One of these difficulties has long been recognised. Hamlet,
according to the evidence of Act V., Scene i., is thirty years of age;
and that is a very late age for a university student. One solution is
found (by those who admit that Hamlet _was_ thirty) in a passage in
Nash's _Pierce Penniless_: 'For fashion sake some [Danes] will put their
children to schoole, but they set them not to it till they are fourteene
years old, so that you shall see a great boy with a beard learne his
A.B.C. and sit weeping under the rod when he is thirty years old.'
Another solution, as we saw (p. 105), is found in Hamlet's character. He
is a philosopher who lingers on at the University from love of his
studies there.

(2) But there is a more formidable difficulty, which seems to have
escaped notice. Horatio certainly came from Wittenberg to the funeral.
And observe how he and Hamlet meet (I. ii. 160).

_Hor._ Hail to your lordship!

_Ham._ I am glad to see you well:
Horatio,--or I do forget myself.

_Hor._ The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.

_Ham._ Sir, my good f