Ib.
The spirit that I have seen, May be a devil: and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps Out of my weakness, and my melancholy, (As he is very potent with such spirits) Abuses me to damn me.
See Sir Thomas Brown:
I believe——that those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are
not the wandering souls of men, but the unquiet walks of devils,
prompting and suggesting us unto mischief, blood and villany,
instilling and stealing into our hearts, that the blessed spirits are
not at rest in their graves, but wander solicitous of the affairs of
the world.
'Relig. Med'. Pt. I. Sect. 37.
Act iii. sc. 1. Hamlet's soliloquy:
To be, or not to be, that is the question, &c.
This speech is of absolutely universal interest,—and yet to which of all Shakspeare's characters could it have been appropriately given but to Hamlet? For Jaques it would have been too deep, and for Iago too habitual a communion with the heart; which in every man belongs, or ought to belong, to all mankind.
Ib.
That undiscover'd country, from whose bourne
No traveller returns.—
Theobald's note in defence of the supposed contradiction of this in the apparition of the Ghost.