players than to you.' The speech is full of inwoven
irony, doubtful, and refusing to be ravelled out. With what merely
half-shown, yet scathing satire it should be spoken and accompanied!]

[Footnote 8: A proverb of the time comically corrupted--_handsaw for
hernshaw_--a heron, the quarry of the hawk. He denies his madness as
madmen do--and in terms themselves not unbefitting madness--so making it
seem the more genuine. Yet every now and then, urged by the commotion of
his being, he treads perilously on the border of self-betrayal.]

[Footnote 9: used as a noun.]

[Footnote 10: _Point thus_: 'Mark it.--You say right, sir; &c.' He takes
up a speech that means nothing, and might mean anything, to turn aside
the suspicion their whispering might suggest to Polonius that they had
been talking about him--so better to lay his trap for him.]

[Footnote 11: He mentions the _actor_ to lead Polonius so that his
prophecy of him shall come true.]

[Footnote 12: An interjection of mockery: he had made a fool of him.]

[Footnote 13: Polonius thinks he is refusing to believe him.]

[Page 100]

_Polon_. The best Actors in the world, either for
Tragedie, Comedie, Historic, Pastorall: Pastoricall-
Comicall-Historicall-Pastorall: [1] Tragicall-Historicall:
Tragicall-Comicall--Historicall-Pastorall[1]:
Scene indiuible,[2] or Poem vnlimited.[3] _Seneca_ cannot
[Sidenote: scene indeuidible,[2]]
be too heauy, nor _Plautus_ too light, for the law of
Writ, and the Liberty. These are the onely men.[4]

_Ham_. O _Iephta_ Iudge of Israel, what a Treasure
had'st thou?

_Pol_. What a Treasure had he, my Lord?[5]

_Ham_. Why one faire Daughter, and no more,[6]
The which he loued passing well.[6]

[Sidenote: 86] _Pol_. Still on my Daughter.

_Ham_. Am I not i'th'right old _Iephta_?

_Polon_. If you call me _Iephta_ my Lord, I haue
a daughter that I loue passing well.

_Ham_. Nay that followes not.[7]

_Polon_. What followes then, my Lord?

_Ham_. Why, As by lot, God wot:[6] and then you
know, It came to passe, as most like it was:[6] The
first rowe of the _Pons[8] Chanson_ will shew you more,
[Sidenote: pious chanson]
For looke where my Abridgements[9] come.
[Sidenote: abridgment[9] comes]

_Enter foure or fiue Players._
[Sidenote: _Enter the Players._]

Y'are w