Bestow this place on vs a little while.[14]
[Footnote 1: 1st Q.
O mother, if euer you did my deare father loue,
Forbeare the adulterous bed to night,
And win your selfe by little as you may,
In time it may be you wil lothe him quite:
And mother, but assist mee in reuenge,
And in his death your infamy shall die.
Queene. Hamlet, I vow by that maiesty,
That knowes our thoughts, and lookes into our hearts,
I will conceale, consent, and doe my best,
What stratagem soe're thou shalt deuise.]
[Footnote 2: The king had spoken of it both before and after the play:
Horatio might have heard of it and told Hamlet.]
[Footnote 3: 'My banishment will be laid to this deed of mine.']
[Footnote 4: —to rid his mother of it.]
[Footnote 5: It may cross him, as he says this, dragging the body out by one end of it, and toward the end of its history, that he is himself drawing toward an end along with Polonius.]
[Footnote 6: —and weeping. 182. See note 5, 183.]
[Footnote 7: Here, according to the editors, comes 'Act IV.' For this there is no authority, and the point of division seems to me very objectionable. The scene remains the same, as noted from Capell in Cam. Sh., and the entrance of the king follows immediately on the exit of Hamlet. He finds his wife greatly perturbed; she has not had time to compose herself.