[Page 142]

Enter[1] Prologue.

For vs, and for our Tragedie, Heere stooping to your Clemencie: We begge your hearing Patientlie.

Ham. Is this a Prologue, or the Poesie[2] of a [Sidenote: posie] Ring?

Ophe. 'Tis[3] briefe my Lord.

Ham. As Womans loue.

[4] Enter King and his Queene. [Sidenote: and Queene]

[Sidenote: 234] King. Full thirtie times[5] hath Phoebus Cart gon
round,
Neptunes salt Wash, and Tellus Orbed ground: [Sidenote: orb'd the]
And thirtie dozen Moones with borrowed sheene,
About the World haue times twelue thirties beene,
Since loue our hearts, and Hymen did our hands
Vnite comutuall, in most sacred Bands.[6]

Bap. So many iournies may the Sunne and Moone [Sidenote: Quee.]
Make vs againe count o're, ere loue be done.
But woe is me, you are so sicke of late,
So farre from cheere, and from your forme state,
[Sidenote: from our former state,]
That I distrust you: yet though I distrust,
Discomfort you (my Lord) it nothing must:
[A]
For womens Feare and Loue, holds quantitie, [Sidenote: And womens hold]
In neither ought, or in extremity:[7]
[Sidenote: Eyther none, in neither]
Now what my loue is, proofe hath made you know,
[Sidenote: my Lord is proofe]
And as my Loue is siz'd, my Feare is so. [Sidenote: ciz'd,]
[B]

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—