ed.

And when Hamlet was left alone, he took up a solemn resolution, that
all he had in his memory, all that he had ever learned by books or
observation, should be instantly forgotten by him, and nothing live in
his brain but the memory of what the ghost had told him, and enjoined
him to do. And Hamlet related the particulars of the conversation
which had passed to none but his dear friend Horatio; and he enjoined
both to him and Marcellus the strictest secrecy as to what they had
seen that night.

The terror which the sight of the ghost had left upon the senses of
Hamlet, he being weak and dispirited before, almost unhinged his
mind, and drove him beside his reason. And he, fearing that it would
continue to have this effect, which might subject him to observation,
and set his uncle upon his guard, if he suspected that he was
meditating any thing against him, or that Hamlet really knew more of
his father's death than he professed, took up a strange resolution
from that time to counterfeit as if he were really and truly mad;
thinking that he would be less an object of suspicion when his uncle
should believe him incapable of any serious project, and that his real
perturbation of mind would be best covered and pass concealed under a
disguise of pretended lunacy.

From this time Hamlet affected a certain wildness and strangeness
in his apparel, his speech, and behaviour, and did so excellently
counterfeit the madman, that the king and queen were both deceived,
and not thinking his grief for his father's death a sufficient cause
to produce such a distemper, for they knew not of the appearance of
the ghost, they concluded that his malady was love, and they thought
they had found out the object.

Before Hamlet fell into the melancholy way which has been related, he
had dearly loved a fair maid called Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius,
the king's chief counsellor in affairs of state. He had sent her
letters and rings, and made many tenders of his affection to her, and
importuned her with love in honourable fashion: and she had given
belief to his vows and importunities. But the melancholy which he fell
into latterly had made him neglect her, and from the time he conceived
the project of counterfeiting madness, he affected to treat her with
unkindness, and a sort of rudeness; but she, good lady, rather than
reproach him with being false to her, persuaded herself that it was
nothing but the disease in his mind, and no settle