by a mere fictitious speech, to
weep for one that he had never seen, for Hecuba, that had been dead so
many hundred years, how dull was he, who having a read motive and cue
for passion, a real king and a dear father murdered, was yet so little
moved, that his revenge all this while had seemed to have slept in dull
and muddy forgetfulness! and while he meditated on actors and acting,
and the powerful effects which a good play, represented to the life,
has upon the spectator, he remembered the instance of some murderer,
who seeing a murder on the stage, was by the mere force of the scene
and resemblance of circumstances so affected, that on the spot he
confessed the crime which he had committed. And he determined that
these players should play something like the murder of his father
before his uncle, and he would watch narrowly what effect it might have
upon him, and from his looks he would be able to gather with more
certainty if he were the murderer or not. To this effect he ordered a
play to be prepared, to the representation of which he invited the king
and queen.

The story of the play was of a murder done in Vienna upon a duke. The
duke's name was Gonzago, his wife Baptista. The play showed how one
Lucianus, a near relation to the duke, poisoned him in his garden for
his estate, and how the murderer in a short time after got the love of
Gonzago's wife.

At the representation of this play, the king, who did not know the trap
which was laid for him, was present, with his queen and the whole
court: Hamlet sitting attentively near him to observe his looks. The
play began with a conversation between Gonzago and his wife, in which
the lady made many protestations of love, and of never marrying a
second husband, if she should outlive Gonzago; wishing she might be
accursed if she ever took a second husband, and adding that no woman
did so, but those wicked women who kill their first husbands. Hamlet
observed the king his uncle change colour at this expression, and that
it was as bad as wormwood both to him and to the queen. But when
Lucianus, according to the story, came to poison Gonzago sleeping in
the garden, the strong resemblance which it bore to his own wicked act
upon the late king, his brother, whom he had poisoned in his garden, so
struck upon the conscience of this usurper, that he was unable to sit
out the rest of the play, but on a sudden calling for lights to his
chamber, and affecting or partly feeling a sud