[Footnote 248:  In the last Act, however, he speaks in verse even in the quarrel with Laertes at Ophelia’s grave.  It would be plausible to explain this either from his imitating what he thinks the rant of Laertes, or by supposing that his ‘towering passion’ made him forget to act the madman.  But in the final scene also he speaks in verse in the presence of all.  This again might be accounted for by saying that he is supposed to be in a lucid interval, as indeed his own language at 239 ff. implies.  But the probability is that Shakespeare’s real reason for breaking his rule here was simply that he did not choose to deprive Hamlet of verse on his last appearance.  I wonder the disuse of prose in these two scenes has not been observed, and used as an argument, by those who think that Hamlet, with the commission in his pocket, is now resolute.]

[Footnote 249:  The verse-speech of the Doctor, which closes this scene, lowers the tension towards that of the next scene.  His introductory conversation with the Gentlewoman is written in prose (sometimes very near verse), partly, perhaps, from its familiar character, but chiefly because Lady Macbeth is to speak in prose.]

NOTE A.

EVENTS BEFORE THE OPENING OF THE ACTION IN HAMLET.

In Hamlet’s first soliloquy he speaks of his father as being ’but two months dead,—­nay, not so much, not two.’  He goes on to refer to the love between his father and mother, and then says (I. ii. 145): 

                          and yet, within a month—­
     Let me not think on’t—­Frailty, thy name is woman!—­
     A little month, or ere those shoes were old
     With which she follow’d my poor father’s body,
     Like Niobe, all tears, why she, even she—­
     O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
     Would have mourn’d longer—­married with my uncle.

It seems hence to be usually assumed that at this time—­the time when the action begins—­Hamlet’s mother has been married a little less than a month.

On this assumption difficulties, however, arise, though I have not found them referred to.  Why has the Ghost waited nearly a month since the marriage before showing itself?  Why has the King waited nearly a month before appearing in public for the first time, as he evidently does in this scene?  And why has Laertes waited nearly a month since the coronation before asking leave to return to France (I. ii. 53)?

To this it might be replied that the marriage and the coronation were separated by some weeks; that, while the former occurred nearly a month before the time of this scene, the latter has only just taken place; and that what the Ghost cannot bear is, not the mere marriage, but the accession of an incestuous murderer to the throne.  But anyone who will read the King’s speech at the opening of the scene will certainly conclude that the marriage has only just been celebrated, and also that it is conceived as involving the accession of Claudius to the throne.  Gertrude is described as the ‘imperial jointress’ of the State, and the King says that the lords consented to the marriage, but makes no separate mention of his election.