[Footnote 7: Also _1st Q_.]

[Footnote 8: The usual interpretation is 'the sledged Poles'; but not to
mention that in a parley such action would have been treacherous, there
is another far more picturesque, and more befitting the _angry parle_,
at the same time more characteristic and forcible: the king in his anger
smote his loaded pole-axe on the ice. There is some uncertainty about
the word _sledded_ or _sleaded_ (which latter suggests _lead_), but we
have the word _sledge_ and _sledge-hammer_, the smith's heaviest, and
the phrase, 'a sledging blow.' The quarrel on the occasion referred to
rather seems with the Norwegians (See Schmidt's _Shakespeare-Lexicon:
Sledded_.) than with the Poles; and there would be no doubt as to the
latter interpretation being the right one, were it not that _the
Polacke_, for the Pole, or nation of the Poles, does occur in the play.
That is, however, no reason why the Dane should not have carried a
pole-axe, or caught one from the hand of an attendant. In both our
authorities, and in the _1st Q_. also, the word is _pollax_--as in
Chaucer's _Knights Tale_: 'No maner schot, ne pollax, ne schort
knyf,'--in the _Folio_ alone with a capital; whereas not once in the
play is the similar word that stands for the Poles used in the plural.
In the _2nd Quarto_ there is _Pollacke_ three times, _Pollack_ once,
_Pole_ once; in the _1st Quarto_, _Polacke_ twice; in the _Folio_,
_Poleak_ twice, _Polake_ once. The Poet seems to have avoided the plural
form.]

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With Martiall stalke,[1] hath he gone by our Watch.

_Hor_. In what particular thought to work, I know not: