[Footnote 5: 'and thy fear uncompelled by our presence, pays homage to us.']
[Footnote 6: 'set down to cool'; 'set in the cold.']
[Footnote 7: mandate: 'Where's Fulvia's process?' Ant. and Cl., act i. sc. 1. Shakespeare Lexicon.]
[Footnote 8: hectic fever—habitual or constant fever.]
[Footnote 9: 'whatever my fortunes.']
[Footnote 10: The original, the Quarto reading—'my ioyes will nere begin' seems to me in itself better, and the cause of the change to be as follows.
In the Quarto the next scene stands as in our modern editions, ending with the rime,
ô from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth. Exit.
This was the act-pause, the natural end of act iii.
But when the author struck out all but the commencement of the scene, leaving only the three little speeches of Fortinbras and his captain, then plainly the act-pause must fall at the end of the preceding scene. He therefore altered the end of the last verse to make it rime with the foregoing, in accordance with his frequent way of using a rime before an important pause.