Now cracks a noble heart.
"___z’d love, the law's delay, The insole___"
"__voutly to be wish'd. To die, to sle__"
"__us consc_e_ce does ma__ cowa_ds"
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
"__uffled off this mort__ coi_"
"______s, puzzles"
"_____st _ _ea"
"ma_es calam_ty of so lo__ life"
Why does the drum come hither?
If we
collect the letters missing here,
from Hamlet's famous glumly musing speech,
the text we find on each successive line
runs thus:
pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office
a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
hence yielding up PRINCE DEEP THINKER
(at first I wrote "despiz'd" and not "dispriz'd",
thinking the missing letter R to be
a careless error -- but hexomino
rightly points out that some texts say "dispriz'd")
and then, after Horatio's next bit,
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil
from which no traveller returns, puzzles the will
take arms against a sea of troubles
That makes calamity of so long life
in which we read he SHALL RETURN AS KING.
We must remember here
that in the play
Prince Hamlet has just died, and now his friend
Horatio here mourns his loss, and says
Goodnight, sweet prince (these grieving words
replaced here by the first begappèd text)
but not forget
that here on PSE
there was a very active, high-rep chap
named Prince Deepthinker, later PDT,
who lately has been seen around much less
and might be noticed to have lost his rep.
I'll say no more on that; discretion's much
the better part of valour, so 'tis said.
