Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear,
Where little fears grow greats great love grows there.[a 1]
P. King. 'Faith, I must leave[b 1] thee Jove, and shortly too; 185
My operant powers their functions[a 2] leave to do;
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou—
P. Queen. Oh, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast; 190
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who kill'd the first.
Ham. [Aside.][a 3] Wormwood, wormwood![a 4]
P. Queen. The instances[b 2] that second marriage move
Are base respects[b 3] of thrifty but none of love; 195
A second time I kill my husband dead,[b 4]
When second husband kisses me in bed.
P. King. I do believe you think[a 5] what now you speak,
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,[b 5] 200
- ↑ 185. leave] cease.
- ↑ 194. instances] motives, inducements, as in King Henry V. II. vi. 119.
- ↑ 195. respects] considerations, as in III. i. 68.
- ↑ 196. kill . . . dead] kill my husband, he being dead (though examples of the tautology "kill dead," meaning "kill," occur in Shakespeare). The reading of Q 1 "lord that's dead" gives the sense.
- ↑ 200-225.] Furness gives a long summary of a longer discussion as to which lines are the dozen or sixteen written by Hamlet, or whether it is meant by Shakespeare that any lines which actually appear should be identified as his. Lines in the present speech, it is argued, are singularly in Hamlet's vein; they look like an insertion; they do not advance the action; they are meant to catch the conscience of Hamlet's mother; the plot sufficiently convicts the King, On the other hand, it is argued, that the Poisoner's speech (perhaps interrupted before its close) is meant; that Hamlet clearly indicates this to Horatio, and that he warns the player against mouthing a passionate speech, Perhaps all this is to inquire too curiously into a dramatic device of
