Note to Hamlet, 2.2.120: "I am ill at these numbers"


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Hamlet,
Act 2, Scene 2, line 120
Hamlet is saying that he is bad at versifying. Verse was often referred to as "numbers" because in Shakespeare's time each line of verse had to have the same number of syllables, and the way to confirm that you were writing proper verse was to number (count) the syllables in each line.