“Possibly,” answered Nash, somewhat nettled by the question. “I had no love for the subject and pushed the work without inspiration; but no one but Marlowe, methinks, would have taken offense at my weak closing of his strong and poetic opening.”
“And the story of Troy was a fond one of his.”
“True, the famous Helen is the subject of conjuration in Faustus and is spoken of in Tamburlaine.”
“And is not the same fondness displayed in Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, King Henry IV, King Henry VI, Troilus and Cressida, and the Tempest?”
“It is.”
“Well, then if thy supposition is correct that Marlowe instead of Shakespere wrote this play of Hamlet, why is not my theory correct that he is holding up thy extravagant lines in Dido to ridicule?” [[note 48]]
“But, how can that be possible?” retorted Nash, “while I may be inclined to believe that Marlowe wrote this play, it could not have been since I completed his unfinished drama of Dido; for did he not die in 1593?”
“Is there not good reason to dispute that death?”
“By what?”
“The internal evidence of this play.”