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She consents to admit Ophelia only after Polonius’ death when she’s advised by Horatio that “’Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew/Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.”

Their purpose, he tells them, is to “hold, as ’t�ɱ����, the mirror up to nature” and expose “the very age and body of the time”.

However the game plays out, what is clear, to paraphrase a famous Englishman, is if it were done when ’tis done, then ’t�ɱ���� well it were done amicably — and not too quickly.

To read these ancient episodes is to be returned, as ’t�ɱ����, to myself; in lost antiquity, I seek my restoration.

In the role of Macbeth, Jack Stehlin the actor instructs his assassins that “’t�ɱ���� well it were done quickly.”