Danish March. A Flourish. Enter King, Queen, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others.

King. How fares our cousin Hamlet ?

Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the camelion's dish: I eat the air, promise-cramm'd: You cannot feed capons so. 299

King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.

Ham. No, nor mine now.-My lord, you play'd once i' the university, you say? [To POLONIUS. Pol. That did I, my lord: and was accounted a good actor.

Ham. And what did you enact?

Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was kill'd i' the capitol; Brutus kill'd me.

Ham. It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there. Be the players ready?

310 Ros. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience. Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more attrac tive.

Pol. O ho! do you mark that?

Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap ?

[To the King.

[Lying down at OPHELIA's fect.

Oph. No, my lord.

Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?

Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters ?

320

Oph. I think nothing, my lord.

Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids

legs.

Oph. What is, my lord?

Ham. Nothing.

Oph. You are merry, my lord.

Ham. Who, I?

Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. O your only jig-maker.

What should a

man do, but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

331

Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. Ham. So long? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens ! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope, a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year: But, by'r-lady, he must build churches then: or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph, is For, 0, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.

Trumpets sound. The dumb shew follows.

339

Enter a king and queen, very lovingly; the queen embracing him, and he her.

She kneels, and makes shew

He takes her up, and de

of protestation unto him. clines his head upon her neck: lays him down 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

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.

Oph. What means this, my lord?

[Exeunt.

Ham. Marry, this is miching malicho; 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 he tell us what this shew meant?

Ham. Ay, or any shew that you'll shew him: Be not you asham'd to shew, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

350

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.

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

Uph. 'Tis brief, my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

Enter

Enter a King, and a Queen.

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

round

Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground; 360
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 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 fear too much, even as they love.
And women's fear and love hold quantity;

In neither ought, or in extremity.

370

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,
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:

380

In second husband let me be accurst!

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

: Ham. 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.

390

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:

400

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 advanc'd, makes friends of enemies.

411