Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.

Ham. Is this a prologue, or the poesy of a ring?
Oph. "T is brief, my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

Enter King and his 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.

P. Queen. So many journies 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.

P. King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too; My operant powers my functions leave 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!

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

Ham. Wormwood, 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.

a Instances-solicitations, inducements.

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:
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, ou slender accident.
This world is not for aye; nor 't is not strange,
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 't is 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;
Aud 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;

Bat die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is dead.

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

To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor's a 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 OPH.

P. King. T is deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here a while; My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

The tedious day with sleep.

P. Queen.

Sleep rock thy brain,

Ham. Madam, how like you this play?

And never come mischance between us twain !

Queen. The lady protests too much, methinks

a Anchor's cheer-anchoret's fare.

[Sleeps.

[Exit.

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' the world.

King. What do you call the play?

Ham. The mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically.a This play is the image of a murther done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; 't is 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 a good chorus, my lord.

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

Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

Ham. It would cost you a groaning, to take off my edge. Oph. Still better, and worse.

Ham. So you must take husbands.-Begin, murtherer; leave thy damnable faces, and begin.

Come;

-The croaking raven

Doth bellow for revenge.

Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;

Confederate season, else no creature seeing;

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

On wholesome life usurp immediately.

[Pours the poison in his ears.

Ham. He poisons him i' the garden for his estate.

a Tropically-figuratively.

b In puppet-shows, which were called motions, an interpreter explained the action to the audience.

His name 's Gonzago; the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian: You shall see anon, how the murtherer 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!

All. Lights, lights, lights!

[Exeunt all but HAM. and HOR.

Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play:

For some must watch, while some must sleep;
So 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 Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

Hor. Half a share.

Ham. A whole one, ay.

For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was

Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very Paiocke.b

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 music; come, the recorders.

For if the king like not the comedy,

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

a Razed-slashed.

b Paiocke. It is said that paiocke means the Italian baiocco, "a piece of money of about three farthings value."

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and Guildenstern.

Come, some music.

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

Guil. The king, sir,

Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?

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

Guil. No, my lord, rather with choler.

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

Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

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?

Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit 's diseased: But, sir, such answers as I can make you shall command; or, rather, you say, my mother: therefore, no more, but to the matter; My mother, you

say,

Ros. Then thus she says: Your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

Ham. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration?