Ham. So long? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables.1 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; 2 whose epitaph is, For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.

Trumpets sound. The Dumb Show3 follows.

Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines 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 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 awhile; but, in the end, accepts his love. [Exeunt.

Oph. What means this, my lord?

4

Ham. Marry, this is miching malicho; it means mischief.

1 i. e. a dress ornamented with the rich fur of that name, said to be the skin of the sable martin. Hamlet meant to use the word equivocally.

2 The hobby-horse was driven from his station by the Puritans, as an impious and pagan superstition, but restored after the promulgation of the Book of Sports. The hobby-horse was formed of a pasteboard horse's head, and probably a light frame made of wicker work to form the hinder parts; this was fastened round the body of a man, and covered with a footcloth, which nearly reached the ground, and concealed the legs of the performer, who displayed his antic equestrian skill, and performed various juggling tricks, wigh-hie-ing, or neighing, to the no small delight of the bystanders. Vide. vol. 2, p. 101.

3 This dumb show appears to be superfluous, and even incongruous ; for as the murder is there circumstantially represented, the king ought to have been struck with it then, without waiting for the dialogue.

4 Miching malicho is lurking mischief, or evil doing. To mich, for to

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 show meant?

Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him. Be not you ashamed 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.

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' cart1 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 commutual 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;

skulk, to lurk, was an old English verb in common use in Shakspeare's time; and malicho or malhecho, misdeed, he has borrowed from the Spanish. 1 Cart, car, or chariot, were used indiscriminately for any carriage, formerly.

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 sized, 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,
Honored, beloved; and, happily, 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 accursed!

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

3

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, 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;

1 This line is omitted in the folio. There appears to have been a line omitted in the quarto which should have rhymed to this.

2 i. e. active.

3 Instances are motives. See note on King Richard III. Act iii. Sc. 2 4 i. e. their own determinations are revoked in their abatement.

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 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.

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 a widow, ever I be wife!

Ham. If she should break it now,

[To OPH. 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.

P. Queen.

[Sleeps.

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?

1 Anchor's for anchoret's.

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

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.

4

Ham. So you mistake your husbands.—Begin, murderer ;-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;

1 First quarto-trapically. It is evident that a pun was intended. 2 "Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista; all the old copies read thus. Yet in the dumb show we have "Enter a King and Queen ;” and at the end of this speech, "Lucianus, nephew to the King." This seeming inconsistency, however, may be reconciled. Though the interlude is the image of the murder of the duke of Vienna, or, in other words, founded upon that story, the Poet might make the principal person in his fable a king. Baptista is never used singly by the Italians, being uniformly compounded with Giam for Giovanni. It is needless to remark that it is always the name of a man.

3 The use to which Shakspeare put the chorus may be seen in King Henry V. Every motion or puppet-show was accompanied by an inter preter or showman.

4 The first quarto-" So you must take your husband." Hamlet puns upon the word mistake; “So you mis-take or take your husbands amiss for better and worse."