arriued. Giue order[12] that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view,
And let me speake to th'yet vnknowing world, [Sidenote: , to yet]
How these things came about. So shall you heare
Of carnall, bloudie, and vnnaturall acts,[13]
Of accidentall Judgements,[14] casuall slaughters[15]
Of death's put on by cunning[16] and forc'd cause,[17]
[Sidenote: deaths | and for no cause]
And in this vpshot, purposes mistooke,[18]
Falne on the Inuentors heads. All this can I [Sidenote: th']
Truly deliuer.

_For_. Let vs hast to heare it,
And call the Noblest to the Audience.
For me, with sorrow, I embrace my Fortune,
I haue some Rites of memory[19] in this Kingdome,
[Sidenote: rights of[19]]

[Footnote 1: --for here it is.]

[Footnote 2: the heap of game after a hunt.]

[Footnote 3: 'Havoc's victims cry out against him.']

[Footnote 4: in preparation.]

[Footnote 5: All the real actors in the tragedy, except Horatio, are
dead.]

[Footnote 6: This line may be taken as a parenthesis; then--'come too
late' joins itself with 'to tell him.' Or we may connect 'hearing' with
'to tell him':--'the ears that should give us hearing in order that we
might tell him' etc.]

[Footnote 7: They thus inquire after the successor of Claudius.]

[Footnote 8: --the mouth of Claudius.]

[Footnote 9: --even if it had.]

[Footnote 10: 'so exactly,' or 'immediately'--perhaps
_opportunely--fittingly_.]

[Footnote 11: dispute, strife.]

[Footnote 12: --addressed to Fortinbras, I should say. The state is
disrupt, the household in disorder; there is no head; Horatio turns
therefore to Fortinbras, who, besides having a claim to the crown, and
being favoured by Hamlet, alone has power at the moment--for his army is
with him.]

[Footnote 13: --those of Claudius.]

[Footnote 14: 'just judgments brought about by accident'--as in the case
of all slain except the king, whose judgment was not accidental, and
Hamlet, whose death was not a judgment.]

[Footnote 15: --those of the queen, Polonius, and Ophelia.]

[Footnote 16: 'put on,' _indued_, 'brought on themselves'--those of
Rosincrance, Guildensterne, and Laertes.]

[Footnote 17: --those of the king and Polonius.]

[Footnote 18: 'and in this result'--_pointing to the bodies_--'purposes
which have mistaken their way, and fallen on the inventors' heads.' _I
am mistaken_ or _mistook_