William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

ACT III. 2. Scene II. A hall in the Castle. (continued)

[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' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd 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:
For women's fear and love holds quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.
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,--