“Ham. My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?”
(To Polonius.)
To have kept Hamlet's love for Ophelia before the audience in any direct form, would have made a [pg 223] breach in the unity of the interest;—but yet to the thoughtful reader it is suggested by his spite to poor Polonius, whom he cannot let rest.
Ib. The style of the interlude here is distinguished from the real dialogue by rhyme, as in the first interview with the players by epic verse.
Ib.—
“Ros. My lord, you once did love me.
Ham. So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.”
I never heard an actor give this word “so” its proper emphasis. Shakespeare's meaning is—“lov'd you? Hum!—so I do still,” &c. There has been no change in my opinion:—I think as ill of you as I did. Else Hamlet tells an ignoble falsehood, and a useless one, as the last speech to Guildenstern—“Why look you now,” &c.—proves.
Ib. Hamlet's soliloquy:—
“Now could I drink hot blood,