[Footnote 5: The word is to be found in any dictionary, but is not generally understood. Lord Byron, a very inaccurate writer, takes it to mean heel:
Devices quaint, and frolics ever new,
Tread on each others' kibes:
Childe Harold, Canto 1. St. 67.
It means a chilblain.]
[Footnote 6: Then Fortinbras could have been but a few months younger than Hamlet, and may have been older. Hamlet then, in the Quarto passage, could not by tender mean young.]
[Footnote 7: 'In what way strangely?'—in what strange way? Or the How may be how much, in retort to the very; but the intent would be the same—a request for further information.]
[Footnote 8: Hamlet has asked on what ground or provocation, that is, from what cause, Hamlet lost his wits; the sexton chooses to take the word ground materially.]
[Footnote 9: The Poet makes him say how long he had been sexton—but how naturally and informally—by a stupid joke!—in order a second time, and more certainly, to tell us Hamlet's age: he must have held it a point necessary to the understanding of Hamlet.
Note Hamlet's question immediately following. It looks as if he had first said to himself: 'Yes—I have been thirty years above ground!' and then said to the sexton, 'How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he rot?' We might enquire even too curiously as to the connecting links.]
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