375. Cries on: either, proclaims; or, incites to. Probably the first.

400. Rights of memory: rights that are remembered. 403. His mouth: i. e., Hamlet's. In line 383 the same phrase refers to the King. Draw on more lead more to speak.

408. Put on: put to the test. In line 394 put on instigated.

409. Proved most royally: showed himself most royal. It is often said that the play should have ended with Hamlet's "The rest is silence" (line 369), or at least with the two lines that immediately follow. Justify the close of the play as Shakespeare gives it.

QUESTIONS ON THE PLAY

What are some of the most marked differences that you observe between a tragedy like Hamlet and one like Macbeth? With which of the two is Julius Cæsar the more closely related? Why? What have Hamlet and Brutus in common? What have Hamlet and Macbeth in common? When Macbeth hesitates to act, what are his grounds? Compare them with Hamlet's reasons.

Collect all the occasions in the play when Hamlet really acts. In how many cases is his action planned by him? In how many is it on the spur of the moment? Turn back to the Introduction, pages xx-xxii, and consider carefully the analyses there given of Hamlet's character. With which do you most nearly agree?

What differences can you point out between Ophelia's real and Hamlet's assumed madness? If you have read King Lear, consider also the real and assumed madness in that play.

Summarize the characteristics of Claudius as they are shown in what he says and does. In what sense is it true that he and Hamlet are "mighty opposites"? If you have seen Hamlet on the stage, criticise the usual interpretation of Claudius's part.

Contrast Gertrude and Lady Macbeth in their relation to their husbands. Compare both with Brutus's Portia. Con

trast Laertes and Horatio with Hamlet. characters be spared from the play?

Could any of the

Study the soliloquies in the play. For what purpose does Shakespeare use them? Compare the number in Hamlet with the number in Macbeth and Julius Cæsar. Can you account for the difference? Why is the soliloquy rarely used in modern plays?

Why is Hamlet, in spite of all its problems, still one of the most popular of all plays, old or new? What elements of melodrama are in the play? What is it that keeps it from being melodrama?

Collect the passages in Hamlet that have become proverbial. What has given them their hold on everybody's mind? What passages in the play seem to you to be the greatest poetry?

GLOSSARY

Absolute, literal, exact to the Argument, plot; III, ii, 149,