Reynol. I, very well my Lord.
Polon. And in part him, but you may say not well;
But if't be hee I meane, hees very wilde;
Addicted so and so; and there put on him
What forgeries you please: marry, none so ranke,
As may dishonour him; take heed of that:
But Sir, such wanton, wild, and vsuall slips,
As are Companions noted and most knowne
To youth and liberty.
[Footnote 1: Not in Quarto.
Between this act and the former, sufficient time has passed to allow the ambassadors to go to Norway and return: 74. See 138, and what Hamlet says of the time since his father's death, 24, by which together the interval seems indicated as about two months, though surely so much time was not necessary.
Cause and effect must be truly presented; time and space are mere accidents, and of small consequence in the drama, whose very idea is compression for the sake of presentation. All that is necessary in regard to time is, that, either by the act-pause, or the intervention of a fresh scene, the passing of it should be indicated.
This second act occupies the forenoon of one day.]
[Footnote 2: 1st Q.
Montano, here, these letters to my sonne, And this same mony with my blessing to him, And bid him ply his learning good Montano.]
[Footnote 3: The father has no confidence in the son, and rightly, for both are unworthy: he turns on him the cunning of the courtier, and sends a spy on his behaviour. The looseness of his own principles comes out very clear in his anxieties about his son; and, having learned the ideas of the father as to what becomes a gentleman, we are not surprised to find the son such as he afterwards shows himself. Till the end approaches, we hear no more of Laertes, nor is more necessary; but without this scene we should have been unprepared for his vileness.]
[Footnote 4: Point thus: 'son, come you more nearer; then &c.' The then here does not stand for than, and to change it to than makes at once a contradiction. The sense is: 'Having put your general questions first, and been answered to your purpose, then your particular demands will come in, and be of service; they will reach to the point—will touch it.' The it is impersonal. After it should come a period.]