Hautboys play. The Dumb Show enters.

Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck; lays him down1 upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling a while, but in the end accepts his love. [Exeunt.

Ophelia. What means this, my lord?

Hamlet. Marry, this is miching mallecho; 2 it means mischief.

Ophelia. Belike 3 this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue.

Hamlet. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all.

Ophelia. Will he tell us what this show meant ?

Hamlet. Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you asham'd to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means. Ophelia. You are naught, you are naught. I'll mark the play.

Prologue.

For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.

Hamlet. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring ? 5

Ophelia. 'Tis brief, my lord.

Hamlet. As woman's love.

[Exit.

5་་ Posy of a ring," i.e., the motto inscribed in a ring. Such mottoes were often in verse, and necessarily brief.

Enter two Players, KING, and QUEEN.

Player King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus'1 cart2 gone round Neptune's salt wash,3 and Tellus' orbed ground, And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen 5 About the world have times twelve thirties been,

6

Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,

Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

Player Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon

Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,

So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;
For women's fear and love holds quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.

Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;

And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;

Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

Player King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;

My operant 7 powers their functions leave to do:

And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,

Honor'd, belov'd; and haply one as kind

For husband shalt thou—

Player Queen.

O, confound the rest!

Such love must needs be treason in my breast:

In second husband let me be accurst!

None wed the second but who kill'd the first.

1 Another name for Apollo, the god of day, and often used by the classic poets to signify the sun.

2 Car.

Hamlet. [Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.

1

Player Queen. The instances that second marriage move Are base respects of thrift,2 but none of love.

Player King. I do believe you think what now you speak; But what we do determine oft we break.

Purpose is but the slave to memory,

Of violent birth, but poor validity ;3

Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,
But fall unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 4 'tis that we forget

To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt;
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy

Their own enactures 5 with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,

Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favorite flies;
The

poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend; 6
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.

7

But, orderly to end where I begun,

Our wills and fates do so contra'ry run,

That our devices still are overthrown;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:

1 Inducements.

244 'Respects of thrift," i.e., considerations of gain.

3 Value.

6 Attend.

4 Allowable.

7 Ripens.

5 Resolutions.

So think thou wilt no second husband wed;

But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

Player Queen. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light! Sport and repose lock from me day and night!

To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope !1
Each opposite that blanks 2 the face of joy
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy !
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife !

Hamlet. If she should break it now!

Player King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here a while;

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

Hamlet. Madam, how like you this play?

Queen. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Hamlet. O, but she'll keep her word.

King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offense in't? Hamlet. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest: no offense i' the world.

King. What do you call the play?

Hamlet. The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work; but what o' that? Your Majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: let the gall'd jade wince, our withers 5 are unwrung.

1 "An anchor's cheer," etc., i.e., may I be limited to an anchorite's (hermit's) fare and confinement. 2 Blanches; makes pale.

3 Figuratively; from "trope," a rhetorical figure.

4 "Let the gall'd jade wince was a proverbial saying.

5 The part of the horse, between the shoulders, on which the strain of the collar falls when the animal is pulling a load.

Enter LUCIANUS.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.

Ophelia. You are as good as a chorus,1 my lord.

Hamlet. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.

Ophelia. Still better, and worse.

Hamlet. So you must take your husbands.—Begin, murderer; leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come: "The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge."

Lucianus. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time

agreeing;

Confederate season,2 else no creature seeing;

Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,3
With Hecate's ban 5 thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property

On wholesome life usurp immediately.

[Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears. Hamlet. He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

Ophelia. The King rises.

Hamlet. What, frighted with false fire!

Queen. How fares my lord ?

Polonius. Give o'er the play.

1 The "chorus," in the sense in which Shakespeare uses it here, is a per sonage who explains the action of the play at its beginning, or at intervals of the performance; as in some of the poet's dramas, Henry V., for instance. 2 "Confederate season," i.e., the time favoring.

3 " Midnight weeds collected," since poisonous herbs were believed to be all the more noxious if gathered in the dark.

4 A daughter of Perses and Asterias, known as Diana on the earth, Luna in heaven, and Hecate or Proserpina in the lower regions. She was supposed to preside over witchcraft and enchantments. In Shakespeare's verse the word always has two syllables, - Hec'ate.