Is apoplexed, for madness would not err,

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thralled

But it reserved some quantity of choice

To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t

That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,

Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,

Or but a sickly part of one true sense

Could not so mope.

G. After 3.4.151, Q2 has this more expansive version of Hamlet’s lines of which F retains only ‘refrain . . . abstinence’:

That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,

Of habits devilish, is angel yet in this:

That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery

That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence, the next more easy—

For use almost can change the stamp of nature—

And either in the devil, or throw him out

With wondrous potency.

H. At 3.4.185, Q2 has these additional lines before ‘This man . . .’:

HAMLET

There’s letters sealed, and my two schoolfellows—

Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged—

They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way

And marshal me to knavery. Let it work,

For ‘tis the sport to have the engineer

Hoised with his own petard; and’t shall go hard

But I will delve one yard below their mines

And blow them at the moon. O, ’tis most sweet

When in one line two crafts directly meet.

1. After ‘done’ in 4.1.39, Q2 has these additional lines continuing the King’s speech (the first three words are an editorial conjecture):

So envious slander,

Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,

As level as the cannon to his blank,

Transports his poisoned shot, may miss our name

And hit the woundless air.

J. Q2 has this more expansive version of the ending of 4.4:

CAPTAIN I will do’t, my lord.

FORTINBRAS

Go softly on.

Exit with his army

Enter Prince Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, etc.

HAMLET (to the Captain) Good sir, whose powers are these?

CAPTAIN

They are of Norway, sir.

HAMLET

How purposed, sir, I pray you?

CAPTAIN

Against some part of Poland.

HAMLET

Who commands them, sir?

CAPTAIN

The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

HAMLET

Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?

CAPTAIN

Truly to speak, and with no addition,

We go to gain a little patch of ground

That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it,

Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

HAMLET

Why then, the Polack never will defend it.

CAPTAIN

Yes, it is already garrisoned.

HAMLET

Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats

Will now debate the question of this straw.

This is th’imposthume of much wealth and peace,

That inward breaks and shows no cause without

Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

CAPTAIN

God buy you, sir. Exit

ROSENCRANTZ Will’t please you go, my lord?

HAMLET

I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.

Exeunt all but Hamlet

How all occasions do inform against me

And spur my dull revenge! What is a man

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed?—a beast, no more.

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To fust in us unused. Now whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th‘event—

A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom

And ever three parts coward—I do not know

Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do’,

Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means,

To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me,

Witness this army of such mass and charge,

Led by a delicate and tender prince,

Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure

To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,

Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour’s at the stake. How stand I, then,

That have a father killed, a mother stained,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep while, to my shame, I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men

That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain. O, from this time forth

My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!

Exit

K. After ‘accident’ at 4.7.67, Q2 has these additional lines:

LAERTES

My lord, I will be ruled,

The rather if you could devise it so