47: This is wanting in the first quarto, like the whole conclusion
of this scene.
48: This whole scene between Horatio and Hamlet consists of the
following four lines in the old quarto:—
Hamlet. Beleeuve me, it greeuves me much, Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myselfe:
For by myselfe methinkes I feel his greefe,
Though there's a difference in each other's way.
Does this not look like a draught destined to be the kernel of a
scene? The end of the scene where Osrick comes in, is also much
shorter in the older play.
49: Florio, 330: 'We amend ourselves by privation of reason and by her drooping.' Hamlet's conduct is only to be explained by his quietly sitting down until his reason should droop.—II. 12.
50: Florio, 608.
51: Florio, 609.
52: This whole scene is nearly new (in the first quarto it is a mere sketch). There are in it several direct allusions to Montaigne's book, on which we shall touch later on.
53: Here the dramatist, in order to paint a trait of vanity in Hamlet's character, uses a device. He makes the latter say that, since Laertes went into France, he (Hamlet) has been in continual practice. Yet we know (act ii. sc. 2) that he had given up his accustomed exercise. In that scene the poet wishes to describe Hamlet's melancholy; in the other, his vanity. He chooses the colours which are apt to produce quickest impressions among the audience.
54: Act v. sc. 2.