Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.

Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
Oph. "Tis brief, my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a King and a Queen.

P. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round

Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground;
And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen,'
About the world have times twelve thirties been;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in most sacred bands. [moon
P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and
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 fear too much, even as they love;
And 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 leave3 to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'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 accurst!

1

splendour, lustre.

• active powers.

a fail.

None wed the second, but who kill'd the first.
Ham. That's wormwood.

P. Queen. The instances,' that second marriage
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love. [move,
P. King. I do believe, you think what now you
But, what we do determine, oft we break. [speak;
Purpose is but the slave to memory;
Of violent birth, but poor validity:

Which now, like 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:2
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 favourite 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 contráry 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 give me food, nor heaven light!

the motives.

2 The performance of a resolution in which only the resolver is interested, is a debt only to himself, which he may therefore remit at pleasure.

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 a widow, ever I be wife!

Ham. If she should break it now,-[To OPHELIA.
P. King. "Tis deeply sworn.

here a while;

Sweet, leave me

[Sleeps.

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

The tedious day with sleep.

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 offence in't?

Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' th' world.

King. What do you call the play?

Ham. 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 of that? your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.

Enter LUCIANUS.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and
time agreeing;

anchor, for anchoret.

because it is

He calls it the mouse-trap,

-the thing

In which he'll catch the conscience of the king.

Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecat's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magick and dire property,

On wholesome life usurp immediately.

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

Oph. The king rises.

Ham. What! frighted with false fire!
Queen. How fares my lord?

Pol. Give o'er the play.

King. Give me some light:-away!

Pol. Lights, lights, lights!

[Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO.

Ham. Why let the strucken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play:

For some must watch, while some must sleep;
Thus runs the world away.-

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers,' (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me,') with two Provencial roses on my razed shoes,* get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

Hor. Half a share.

Ham. A whole one, I.

For thou dost know, O Damon' dear,

This realm dismantled was

Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very-peacock.

Feathers were much worn on the stage in Shakspeare's time.

2

change conditions rudely.

' Roses of Provence.

stood.

Streaked shoes.

Here roses of ribbons must be under

Hamlet calls Horatio by this name in allusion to the celebrated friendship between Damon and Pythias.

Hor. You might have rhymed.

Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?

Hor. Very well, my lord.

Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning,

Hor. I did very well note him.

Ham. Ah, ha!-Come, some musick; come, the recorders.

For if the king like not the comedy,

Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.'

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Come, some musick.

Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with Ham. Sir, a whole history.

Guil. The king, sir,

Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?

[you.

Guil. Is, in his retirement, marvellous distempered. Ham. With drink, sir?

Guil. No, my lord, with choler.

Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer, to signify this to the doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation, would, perhaps, plunge him into more choler.

affair.

Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my Ham. I am tame, sir :-pronounce.

Guil. The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

Ham. You are welcome.

Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment: if not, your pardon, and my return, shall be the end of my business.

Ham. Sir, I cannot.
Guil. What, my lord?

A corruption of par Dieu.