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 sized, my fear is so.

PLAYER 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,

Honoured, beloved; 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 killed the first.

HAMLET Wormwood, wormwood.

PLAYER 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.

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,

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, 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 advanced 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.

PLAYER QUEEN

Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,

Sport and repose lock from me day and night,

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.

HAMLET If she should break it now!

PLAYER KING (to Player Queen)

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

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

The tedious day with sleep.

PLAYER QUEEN Sleep rock thy brain,

And never come mischance between us twain.

Player King sleeps. Player Queen exits

HAMLET (to Gertrude) Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN GERTRUDE The lady protests too much, methinks.

HAMLET O, but she’ll keep her word.

KING CLAUDIUS Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?

HAMLET No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. No offence i’th’ world.

KING CLAUDIUS What do you call the play?

HAMLET The Mousetrap. 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 galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.

Enter Player Lucianus

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.

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

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

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

HAMLET It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge.

OPHELIA Still better, and worse.

HAMLET So you mis-take your husbands. (To Lucianus) Begin, murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces and begin. Come: ‘the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge’.

PLAYER LUCIANUS

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.

He pours the poison in the Player King’s ear

HAMLET A poisons him i’th’ 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 GERTRUDE (to Claudius) How fares my lord?

POLONIUSGive o’er the play.

KING CLAUDIUS Give me some light. Away. ⌈COURTIERS⌉ Lights, lights, lights!

Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio

HAMLET

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

The hart ungallèd 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 Provençal

roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry

of players, sir?

HORATIO Half a share.

HAMLET A whole one, I.

For thou dost know, O Damon dear,

This realm dismantled was

Of Jove himself, and now reigns here