Ghost. I that incestuous, that adulterate Beast[6]
With witchcraft of his wits, hath Traitorous guifts.
[Sidenote: wits, with]
Oh wicked Wit, and Gifts, that haue the power
So to seduce? Won to to this shamefull Lust [Sidenote: wonne to his]
The will of my most seeming vertuous Queene:
Oh Hamlet, what a falling off was there, [Sidenote: what failing]
From me, whose loue was of that dignity,
That it went hand in hand, euen with[7] the Vow
I made to her in Marriage; and to decline
Vpon a wretch, whose Naturall gifts were poore
To those of mine. But Vertue, as it neuer wil be moued,
Though Lewdnesse court it in a shape of Heauen:
So Lust, though to a radiant Angell link'd, [Sidenote: so but though]
Will sate it selfe in[8] a Celestiall bed, and prey on Garbage.[9]
[Sidenote: Will sort it selfe]
But soft, me thinkes I sent the Mornings Ayre; [Sidenote: morning ayre,]
Briefe let me be: Sleeping within mine Orchard, [Sidenote: my]
My custome alwayes in the afternoone; [Sidenote: of the]
Vpon my secure hower thy Vncle stole
[Footnote 1: Now, for the moment, he has no doubt, and vengeance is his first thought.]
[Footnote 2: Hamlet may be supposed to recall this, if we suppose him afterwards to accuse himself so bitterly and so unfairly as in the Quarto, 194.]
[Footnote 3: Also 1st Q.]
[Footnote 4: landing-place on the bank of Lethe, the hell-river of oblivion.]
[Footnote 5: This does not mean that he had suspected his uncle, but that his dislike to him was prophetic.]
[Footnote 6: How can it be doubted that in this speech the Ghost accuses his wife and brother of adultery? Their marriage was not adultery. See how the ghastly revelation grows on Hamlet—his father in hell—murdered by his brother—dishonoured by his wife!]
[Footnote 7: parallel with; correspondent to.]
[Footnote 8: 1st Q. 'fate itself from a'.]
[Footnote 9: This passage, from 'Oh Hamlet,' most indubitably asserts the adultery of Gertrude.]