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. Exeunt. OPH. What means this, my lord? HAM. Marry, this is miching *mallecho; (41) it malicho. means mischief. 1623, 32. munching 4tos. OPH. Belike,(42) this show imports the argumenta malleco. of the play. Enter Prologue. HAM. We shall know by this fellow + the players + So 4tos. 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 you what it means. tell OPH. You are naught, you are naught; I'll mark the play. a imports the argument] i. e. " contains, includes, and discloses the subject matter." See Tim. II. 2. Flav. & 1603. these fellows. 1623, 32. * So 4tos. poesy. 1623, 32. & 4to.1603. + Bap. 1623. PRO. For us, and for our tragedy, HAM. Is this a prologue, or the posy* of a ring ?(43) HAM. As woman's love. Enter a King, and a Queen. P. KING. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart(44) Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground; (45) P. QUEEN. So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o'er, ere love be done! Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know; [Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; P. KING. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too; holds quantity In neither aught, or in extremity] i. e. have a just corres- And either is not, or is in a violent extreme. * my. 1623, 32. My operant powers their* functions leave to do:(49) So 4tos. P. QUEEN.† 1623. 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. P. QUEEN.S The instances (50) 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 :(51) Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree; To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt; What to ourselves in passion we propose, с ✰ that's wormw. 4tos. § Id. || So 4tos. other. 1623, 32. Their own enactures with themselves destroy :(52) ¶ So 4tos. Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; • what we do determine, oft we break] i. e. unsettle our most fixed resolves. b Purpose Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree; But fall, 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 also the reading of the quartos. See scope of these articles allow." I. 1. King. e what to ourselves is debt] i. e. is such, only to ourselves. 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. enactors. 1623, 32. 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 a lead fortune, or else fortune love. Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own: But die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is dead. P. QUEEN. Nor earth to give me food, nor Sport and repose lock from me, day, and night! a whether love] Instead of the anapæst, and that the proper word, it was the use of our author and the age, frequently to write in the ordinary spondaic measure, where. See Temp. V. 1. Alonz. So Jonson to Dr. Donne: "Who shall doubt, Donne, where I a poet be; "That so alone can'st judge, so alone dost make." Epigr. 96. b directly seasons him his enemy] i. e. "throws in an ingredient, which constitutes," &c. This term is used with great latitude in several parts of this play; and 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." The folio of 1632 has, as the quartos, Queen for PlayerQueen throughout, instead of Bap. d Nor earth to give me food, nor] i. e. " be there neither earth, &c. nor, &c." The quarto, 1604, reads " to me give." Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy, 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 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 in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista:(56) 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. ■ the argument] i. e. the subject matter. See Ophelia, supra. You are a good chorus, my lord] i. e. " perform the office of a chorus, which is here to interpret the immediate action and |