The Queen returns, finds the King dead, makes passionate action. The pois'ner with some three or four [mutes] come in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is carried away. The pois'ner woos the Queen with gifts; she seems harsh [and unwilling] awhile, but in the end accepts love.

 

[Exeunt.]

 

OPH. What means this, my lord?

HAM. Marry, this' [miching] mallecho, it means mischief.

OPH. Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

 

Enter Prologue.

HAM. We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep [counsel], they'll tell all.

OPH. Will 'a tell us what this show meant?

HAM. Ay, or any show that you will show him. Be not you asham'd to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

OPH. You are naught, you are naught. I'll mark the play.

PRO.

For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.

 

[Exit.]

 

HAM.

Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

OPH.

'Tis brief, my lord.

HAM.

As woman's love.

 

Enter [two Players,] King and Queen.

 

[P.] KING.

Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round

Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,

And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen

About the world have times twelve thirties been,

Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands

Unite comutual in most sacred bands.

[P.] 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 hold 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.

[P.] KING.

Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;

My operant 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 –

[P.] QUEEN.

O, confound the rest!

Such love must needs be treason in my breast.

In second husband let me be accurs'd!

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

HAM [Aside.]

That's wormwood!

[P. QUEEN.]

The instances that second marriage move

Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.

A second time I kill my husband dead,

When second husband kisses me in bed.

[P.] 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,

Which now, the fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,

But fall unshaken when they mellow be.

Most necessary '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 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,

For who not needs shall never lack a friend,

And who in want a hollow friend doth try,

Directly seasons him his enemy.

But orderly to end where I begun,

Our wills and fates do so contrary run

That our devices still are overthrown,

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

So think thou wilt no second husband wed,

But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

[P.] 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!

Each opposite that blanks the face of joy

Meet what I would have well and it destroy!

Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,

If once I be a widow, ever I be a wife!

HAM.

If she should break it now!

[P.] KING.

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

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

The tedious day with sleep.

[Sleeps.]

 

[P.] QUEEN.

Sleep rock thy brain,

And never come mischance between us twain!

 

Exit.

 

HAM. Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

HAM. O but she'll keep her word.

KING. Have you heard the argument? is there no offense in't?

HAM. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest – no offense i' th' world.

KING. What do you call the play?

HAM. ›The Mouse-trap.‹ Marry, how? tropically: this play is the image of a murther done in Vienna; Gonzago is the duke's name, his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that? Your Majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the gall'd jade winch, our withers are unwrung.

 

Enter Lucianus.

 

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

OPH. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

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

OPH.