...and Guildenstern: They are not near my conscience; their defeat Does by their own insinuation grow : 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between...pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites. (v.2.58) It is to Horatio that he addressed the lines whose sentiment is all the more moving because...

...their employment; They are not near my conscience; their defeat Does by their own insinuation grow: 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between...pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites. (V.ii. 57-62) In both speeches the war imagery reminds us29 that Hamlet and Claudius are engaged in...

...work in manuscript, came also to this conclusion in the 1949 edition of The Wheel of Fire, pp. 320-3. Does it not, thinks't thee, stand me now upon He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother, Popp'd in between the election and my hopes, Thrown out his angle for my proper life,...

...who is growing into kingly stature shows no regret for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between...pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites. (5.2.61-3) It is of course lurid to compare Francis Jeanson to the king's abject and willing cat's...