[Footnote 9: A cry of hounds is a pack. So in King Lear, act v. sc. 3, 'packs and sects of great ones.']
[Footnote 10: I for ay—that is, yes!—He insists on a whole share.]
[Footnote 11: Again he takes refuge in singing.]
[Footnote 12: The lines are properly measured in the Quarto:
For thou doost know oh Damon deere
This Realme dismantled was
Of Ioue himselfe, and now raignes heere
A very very paiock.
By Jove, he of course intends his father. 170. What 'Paiocke' means, whether pagan, or peacock, or bajocco, matters nothing, since it is intended for nonsense.]
[Footnote 13: To rime with was, Horatio naturally expected ass to follow as the end of the last line: in the wanton humour of his excitement, Hamlet disappointed him.]
[Footnote 14: In Q. after next speech.]
[Footnote 15: He hears Rosincrance and Guildensterne coming, and changes his behaviour—calling for music to end the play with. Either he wants, under its cover, to finish his talk with Horatio in what is for the moment the safest place, or he would mask himself before his two false friends. Since the departure of the king—I would suggest—he has borne himself with evident apprehension, every now and then glancing about him, as fearful of what may follow his uncle's recognition of the intent of the play. Three times he has burst out singing.
Or might not his whole carriage, with the call for music, be the outcome of a grimly merry satisfaction at the success of his scheme?]