[Footnote 11: dispute, strife.]
[Footnote 12: —addressed to Fortinbras, I should say. The state is disrupt, the household in disorder; there is no head; Horatio turns therefore to Fortinbras, who, besides having a claim to the crown, and being favoured by Hamlet, alone has power at the moment—for his army is with him.]
[Footnote 13: —those of Claudius.]
[Footnote 14: 'just judgments brought about by accident'—as in the case of all slain except the king, whose judgment was not accidental, and Hamlet, whose death was not a judgment.]
[Footnote 15: —those of the queen, Polonius, and Ophelia.]
[Footnote 16: 'put on,' indued, 'brought on themselves'—those of
Rosincrance, Guildensterne, and Laertes.]
[Footnote 17: —those of the king and Polonius.]
[Footnote 18: 'and in this result'—pointing to the bodies—'purposes which have mistaken their way, and fallen on the inventors' heads.' I am mistaken or mistook, means I have mistaken; 'purposes mistooke'—purposes in themselves mistaken:—that of Laertes, which came back on himself; and that of the king in the matter of the poison, which, by falling on the queen, also came back on the inventor.]
[Footnote 19: The Quarto is correct here, I think: 'rights of the past'—'claims of descent.' Or 'rights of memory' might mean—'rights yet remembered.'
Fortinbras is not one to miss a chance: even in this shadowy 'person,' character is recognizably maintained.]