wne Treacherie.[14]

_Ham_. How does the Queene?

_King_. She sounds[15] to see them bleede.

_Qu_. No, no, the drinke, the drinke[16]

[Footnote 1: She is anxious about him. It may be that this speech, and
that of the king before (266), were fitted to the person of the actor
who first represented Hamlet.]

[Footnote 2: --a simple acknowledgment of her politeness: he can no more
be familiarly loving with his mother.]

[Footnote 3: She drinks, and offers the cup to Hamlet.]

[Footnote 4: He is too much afraid of exposing his villainy to be prompt
enough to prevent her.]

[Footnote 5: This is not meant by the Poet to show suspicion: he does
not mean Hamlet to die so.]

[Footnote 6: The actor should not allow her: she approaches Hamlet; he
recoils a little.]

[Footnote 7: He has compunctions, but it needs failure to make them
potent.]

[Footnote 8: 'treat me as an effeminate creature.']

[Footnote 9: He makes a sudden attack, without warning of the fourth
bout.]

[Footnote 10: _Not in Q._

The 1st Q. directs:--_They catch one anothers Rapiers, find both are
wounded_, &c.

The thing, as I understand it, goes thus: With the words 'Have at you
now!' Laertes stabs Hamlet; Hamlet, apprised thus of his treachery, lays
hold of his rapier, wrenches it from him, and stabs him with it in
return.]

[Footnote 11: 'they have lost their temper.']

[Footnote 12: --said with indignation and scorn, but without suspicion
of the worst.]

[Footnote 13: --the proverbially foolish bird. The speech must be spoken
with breaks. Its construction is broken.]

[Footnote 14: His conscience starts up, awake and strong, at the
approach of Death. As the show of the world withdraws, the realities
assert themselves. He repents, and makes confession of his sin, seeing
it now in its true nature, and calling it by its own name. It is a
compensation of the weakness of some that they cannot be strong in
wickedness. The king did not so repent, and with his strength was the
more to blame.]

[Footnote 15: _swounds, swoons_.]

[Footnote 16: She is true to her son. The maternal outlasts the
adulterous.]

[Page 270]

Oh my deere _Hamlet_, the drinke, the drinke,
I am poyson'd.

_Ham_. Oh Villany! How? Let the doore be lock'd.
Treacherie, seeke it out.[1]

_Laer_. It is heere _Hamlet_.[2]
_Hamlet_,[3] thou art slaine,
No Medicine in the world can do thee good.
In thee, there is not halfe an houre of life; [Sidenote: houres life