Sentence No. 76 · 11 June 2026
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
William Shakespeare — Hamlet (1603) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
The "But" here is not a sentence opener — it completes the contrast begun by "they come not single spies." Whenever "not" in one phrase is answered by "But" in the next, the "But" phrase belongs in the second half, never at the start.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 6 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. A prince meditates on grief arriving in overwhelming force. Putting it back in the author’s order is the puzzle — and the order is rarely arbitrary, which is what the note above is about.
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