churches then:

or else shall he suffer not think

ing on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.(39)

Trumpets sound. The dumb show follows. (40)

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.

OPH. What means this, my lord?

[Exeunt.

HAM. Marry, this is miching *mallecho; (4) it malicho, means mischief.

1623, 32. munching b malleco,

OPH. Belike, (42) this show imports the arguments. 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?

But, by'r-lady, he must build churches then] The remem brance of such conspicuous and signal acts of piety, and public benefit, does not presently pass away.

' imports the argument] Contains, includes, and discloses.

* Bap. 1623.

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' cart (4)
gone round

Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground; (45)
And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen, (46)
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: (47)
For women's fear and love holds quantity;"
In neither aught, or in extremity.

holds quantity

In neither aught, or in extremity] Have a just correspondence, in measure and proportion answer to each other. "Things base and vile, holding no quantity."

And either is not, or is in a violent extreme.

M. N. Dr. I. 1. Hel.

Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so. (45)

[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:(49)
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! * Bap. 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. a

1623.

P. QUEEN.* The instances (50) that second mar. Id. riage 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 :(51)

Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be."

The quartos read, "That's wormwood."

b what we do determine, oft we break] Unsettle our most fixed resolves.

с

Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;

But full, unshaken, when they mellow be.]

The verb fall is, as sticks, properly referable to the singular noun purpose; but, in our author's mind, was connected with unripe fruit, (a noun of multitude, and admitting a plural) and they, its relative; to which it nearly adjoined. Fall is the

G

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: (52)

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 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.

reading also of the quartos. See "scope of these articles allow." I. 1. King.

a what to ourselves is debt] i. e. is such, only to ourselves. Dr. Johnson says, 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.

directly seasons him his enemy] "Throws in an ingredient, which constitutes," &c. This term is used with great latitude in several parts of this play; and Mr. Steevens points out an use of it not dissimilar in Chapman's Odyss. XV.

66

-taught with so much woe,

"As thou hast suffer'd, to be season'd so."

a

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 cheer in prison be my scope!] (53)
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,

P. KING. 'Tis deeply sworn.

here a while;

[To OPHELIA.

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.

P. QUEEN.

Sweet, leave me

[Sleeps.

Sleep rock thy brain;

[Exit.

And never come mischance between us twain!

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'the world.

KING. What do you call the play?

HAM. The mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. (54) This play is the image of a murder (55) done

The folio of 1632 has, as the quartos, Queen for PlayerQueen throughout, instead of Bap.

b Nor earth to give me food, nor] "Be there neither earth, &c. nor, &c." The quarto, 1604, reads " to me give." See Ophelia, supra.

the argument] The subject matter.