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 shewed 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
ever 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