Page:Hamlet - The Arden Shakespeare - 1899.djvu/26

 watches and meets his father's ghost. The season of the year is perhaps March; the nights are bitter cold. The second Act occupies part of one day; Polonius despatches Reynaldo to Paris, Ophelia enters alarmed by Hamlet's visit, her father reads Hamlet's letter, the players arrive; and, when Hamlet parts from them, his words are, "I'll leave you till to-night." But before this day arrives, two months have elapsed since Hamlet was enjoined to revenge the murder—it was two months since his father's death when the play opened, and now it is "twice two months." Next day Hamlet utters his soliloquy, "To be or not to be," encounters Ophelia as arranged by Polonius, gives his advice to the players, is present at the performance of the play; and, night having come, he pleads with his mother, and again sees his father's spirit. Here the third Act closes, but the action proceeds without interruption; the King inquires for the body of Polonius, and tells Hamlet that the bark is ready to bear him to England. We must suppose that it is morning when Hamlet meets the troops of Fortinbras. Two days previously the ambassadors from Norway had returned, with a request that Claudius would permit Fortinbras to march through Denmark against the Poles; Fortinbras himself must have arrived almost as soon as the ambassadors, and obtained the Danish King's permission. In IV. v. Ophelia appears distracted, and Laertes has returned from Paris to be revenged for Polonius's death. An interval of time must have passed since Hamlet sailed for England—an interval sufficient to permit Laertes to receive tidings of the death of Polonius and to reach Elsinore. In the next scene letters arrive