ueen, and his life: and he adjured Hamlet, if
he did ever his dear father love that he would revenge his foul murder.
And the ghost lamented to his son, that his mother should so fall off
from virtue, as to prove false to the wedded love of her first husband,
and to marry his murderer, but he cautioned Hamlet, howsoever he
proceeded in his revenge against his wicked uncle, by no means to act
any violence against the person of his mother, but to leave her to
heaven, and to the stings and thorns of conscience. And Hamlet promised
to observe the ghost's direction in all things, and the ghost vanished.

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
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
conterfeit 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