ned
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 anything
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.

[Illustration: TO THIS BROOK OPHELIA CAME]

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 settled unkindness, which had made him less
observant of her than formerly; and she compared the faculties of his
once noble mind and excellent understanding, impaired as they were with
the deep melancholy that oppressed him, to sweet bells