refers to events which do not
come absolutely within the frame of the picture. But they are very
recent, very simple, events. If Othello's speech were omitted, or cut
down to half a dozen lines, we should know much less of his character
and Desdemona's, but the mere action of the play would remain perfectly
comprehensible.

_King Lear_ necessarily opens with a great act of state, the partition
of the kingdom. A few words between Kent and Gloucester show us what is
afoot, and then, at one plunge, we are in the thick of the drama. There
was no opportunity here for one of those picturesque tableaux, exciting
rather than informative, which initiate the other tragedies. It would
have had to be artificially dragged in; and it was the less necessary,
as the partition scene took on, in a very few lines, just that
arresting, stimulating quality which the poet seems to have desired in
the opening of a play of this class.

Finally, when we turn to _Hamlet_, we find a consummate example of the
crisply-touched opening tableau, making a nervous rather than an
intellectual appeal, informing us of nothing, but exciting a vivid,
though quite vague, anticipation. The silent transit of the Ghost,
desiring to speak, yet tongue-tied, is certainly one of Shakespeare's
unrivalled masterpieces of dramatic craftsmanship. One could pretty
safely wager that if the _Ur-Hamlet_, on which Shakespeare worked, were
to come to light to-morrow, this particular trait would not be found in
it. But, oddly enough, into the middle of this admirable opening
tableau, Shakespeare inserts a formal exposition, introduced in the most
conventional way. Marcellus, for some unexplained reason, is ignorant of
what is evidently common knowledge as to the affairs of the realm, and
asks to be informed; whereupon Horatio, in a speech of some twenty-five
lines, sets forth the past relations between Norway and Denmark, and
prepares us for the appearance of Fortinbras in the fourth act. In
modern stage versions all this falls away, and nobody who has not
studied the printed text is conscious of its absence. The commentators,
indeed, have proved that Fortinbras is an immensely valuable element in
the moral scheme of the play; but from the point of view of pure drama,
there is not the slightest necessity for this Norwegian-Danish
embroilment or its consequences.[4] The real exposition--for _Hamlet_
differs from the other tragedies in requiring an exposition--comes in
the gre