Hamlet hot and dry.]

[Footnote 9: for the special occasion.]

[Footnote 10: thrust. _Twelfth Night_, act iii. sc. 4. 'he gives me the
stuck in with such a mortal motion.' _Stocco_ in Italian is a long
rapier; and _stoccata_ a thrust. _Rom. and Jul_., act iii. sc. 1. See
_Shakespeare-Lexicon_.]

[Footnote 11: 'may' does not here express _doubt_, but _intention_.]

[Footnote 12: If this be the right reading, it means, 'so fast they
insist on following.']

[Footnote 13: He speaks it as about to rush to her.]

[Footnote 14: --the choice of Ophelia's fantastic madness, as being the
tree of lamenting lovers.]

[Footnote 15: --always busy with flowers.]

[Footnote 16: Ranunculus: _Sh. Lex._]

[Footnote 17: --specially descriptive of the willow.]

[Footnote 18: her wild flowers made into a garland.]

[Footnote 19: The intention would seem, that she imagined herself
decorating a monument to her father. Hence her _Coronet weeds_ and the
Poet's _weedy Trophies_.]

[Footnote 20: _Sliver_, I suspect, called so after the fact, because
_slivered_ or torn off. In _Macbeth_ we have:

slips of yew
Slivered in the moon's eclipse.

But it may be that _sliver_ was used for a _twig_, such as could be torn
off.

_Slip_ and _sliver_ must be of the same root.]

[Page 224]

Fell in the weeping Brooke, her cloathes spred wide,
And Mermaid-like, a while they bore her vp,
Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,[1]
[Sidenote: old laudes,[1]]
As one incapable of[2] her owne distresse,
Or like a creature Natiue, and indued[3]
Vnto that Element: but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heauy with her drinke, [Sidenote: theyr drinke]
Pul'd the poore wretch from her melodious buy,[4]
[Sidenote: melodious lay]
To muddy death.[5]

_Laer_. Alas then, is she drown'd? [Sidenote: she is]

_Queen_. Drown'd, drown'd.

_Laer_. Too much of water hast thou poore _Ophelia_,
And therefore I forbid my teares: but yet
It is our tricke,[6] Nature her custome holds,
Let shame say what it will; when these are gone
The woman will be out:[7] Adue my Lord,
I haue a speech of fire, that faine would blaze,
[Sidenote: speech a fire]
But that this folly doubts[8] it. _Exit._ [Sidenote: drownes it.[8]]

_Kin_. Let's follow, _Gertrude_:
How much I had to doe to c