he feels that he could not refuse unless at the same time he openly accused the King of his father’s murder (a course which he seems at no time to contemplate); for by the slaughter of Polonius he has supplied his enemy with the best possible excuse for getting him out of the country.  Besides, he has so effectually warned this enemy that, after the death of Polonius is discovered, he is kept under guard (IV. iii. 14).  He consents, then, to go.  But on his way to the shore he meets the army of Fortinbras on its march to Poland; and the sight of these men going cheerfully to risk death ‘for an egg-shell,’ and ’making mouths at the invisible event,’ strikes him with shame as he remembers how he, with so much greater cause for action, ‘lets all sleep;’ and he breaks out into the soliloquy, ‘How all occasions do inform against me!’

This great speech, in itself not inferior to the famous ’To be or not to be,’ is absent not only from the First Quarto but from the Folio.  It is therefore probable that, at any rate by the time when the Folio appeared (1623), it had become customary to omit it in theatrical representation; and this is still the custom.  But, while no doubt it is dramatically the least indispensable of the soliloquies, it has a direct dramatic value, and a great value for the interpretation of Hamlet’s character.  It shows that Hamlet, though he is leaving Denmark, has not relinquished the idea of obeying the Ghost.  It exhibits very strikingly his inability to understand why he has delayed so long.  It contains that assertion which so many critics forget, that he has ’cause and will and strength and means to do it.’  On the other hand—­and this was perhaps the principal purpose of the speech—­it convinces us that he has learnt little or nothing from his delay, or from his failure to seize the opportunity presented to him after the play-scene.  For, we find, both the motive and the gist of the speech are precisely the same as those of the soliloquy at the end of the Second Act (’O what a rogue’).  There too he was stirred to shame when he saw a passionate emotion awakened by a cause which, compared with his, was a mere egg-shell.  There too he stood bewildered at the sight of his own dulness, and was almost ready to believe—­what was justly incredible to him—­that it was the mask of mere cowardice.  There too he determined to delay no longer:  if the King should but blench, he knew his course.  Yet this determination led to nothing then; and why, we ask ourselves in despair, should the bloody thoughts he now resolves to cherish ever pass beyond the realm of thought?

Between this scene (IV. iv.) and the remainder of the play we must again suppose an interval, though not a very long one.  When the action recommences, the death of Polonius has led to the insanity of Ophelia and the secret return of Laertes from France.  The young man comes back breathing slaughter.  For the King, afraid to put Hamlet on his trial (a course likely to raise the question of his own behaviour