[Footnote 247: I have confined myself to the single aspect of this question on which I had what seemed something new to say. Professor Hales's defence of the passage on fuller grounds, in the admirable paper reprinted in his _Notes and Essays on Shakespeare_, seems to me quite conclusive. I may add two notes. (1) The references in the Porter's speeches to 'equivocation,' which have naturally, and probably rightly, been taken as allusions to the Jesuit Garnet's appeal to the doctrine of equivocation in defence of his perjury when, on trial for participation in the Gunpowder Plot, do not stand alone in _Macbeth_. The later prophecies of the Witches Macbeth calls 'the equivocation of the fiend That lies like truth' (V. v. 43); and the Porter's remarks about the equivocator who 'could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven,' may be compared with the following dialogue (IV. ii. 45): _Son._ What is a traitor? _Lady Macduff._ Why, one that swears and lies. _Son._ And be all traitors that do so? _Lady Macduff._ Everyone that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged. Garnet, as a matter of fact, _was_ hanged in May, 1606; and it is to be feared that the audience applauded this passage. (2) The Porter's soliloquy on the different applicants for admittance has, in idea and manner, a marked resemblance to Pompey's soliloquy on the inhabitants of the prison, in _Measure for Measure_, IV. iii. 1 ff.; and the dialogue between him and Abhorson on the 'mystery' of hanging (IV. ii. 22 ff.) is of just the same kind as the Porter's dialogue with Macduff about drink.] [Footnote 248: In the last Act, however, he speaks in verse even in the quarrel with Laertes at Ophelia's grave. It would be plausible to explain this either from his imitating what he thinks the rant of Laertes, or by supposing that his 'towering passion' made him forget to act the madman. But in the final scene also he speaks in verse in the presence of all. This again might be accounted for by saying that he is supposed to be in a lucid interval, as indeed his own language at 239 ff. implies. But the probability is that Shakespeare's real reason for breaking his rule here was simply that he did not choose to deprive Hamlet of verse on his last appearance. I wonder the disuse of prose in these two scenes has not been observed, and used as an argument, by those who think that Hamlet, with the commission in his pocket, is now resolute.] [Footnote 249: The verse-speech of the Doctor, which closes this scene, lowers the tension towards that of the next scene. His introductory conversation with the Gentlewoman is written in prose (sometimes very near verse), partly, perhaps, from its familiar character, but chiefly because Lady Macbeth is to speak in prose.] NOTE A. EVENTS BEFORE THE OPENING OF THE ACTION IN _HAMLET_.