[Footnote 12: small sword. If there be here any allusion to suicide, it is on the general question, and with no special application to himself. 24. But it is the king and the bare bodkin his thought associates. How could he even glance at the things he has just mentioned, as each, a reason for suicide? It were a cowardly country indeed where the question might be asked, 'Who would not commit suicide because of any one of these things, except on account of what may follow after death?'! One might well, however, be tempted to destroy an oppressor, and risk his life in that.]
[Footnote 13: Fardel, burden: the old French for fardeau, I am informed.]
[Footnote 14: —a dread caused by conscience.]
[Footnote 15: The Ghost could not be imagined as having returned.]
[Footnote 16: 'of us all' not in Q. It is not the fear of evil that makes us cowards, but the fear of deserved evil. The Poet may intend that conscience alone is the cause of fear in man. 'Coward' does not here involve contempt: it should be spoken with a grim smile. But Hamlet would hardly call turning from suicide cowardice in any sense. 24.]
[Footnote 17: —such as was his when he vowed vengeance.]
[Footnote 18: —such as immediately followed on that The native hue of resolution—that which is natural to man till interruption comes—is ruddy; the hue of thought is pale. I suspect the 'pale cast' of an allusion to whitening with rough-cast.]
[Page 122]
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,[1] [Sidenote: pitch [1]
With this regard their Currants turne away, [Sidenote: awry]
And loose the name of Action.[2] Soft you now,
[Sidenote: 119] The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons[3]
Be all my sinnes remembred.[4]
Ophe. Good my Lord, How does your Honor for this many a day?