Shakespeare Great Tragedy

The Mousetrap

Doubt 4, The Play and the Praying King

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As the court watches a play, Hamlet lies stretched out on the floor watching closely, while on the stage behind an actor bends over a sleeping king.
Illustration by John Gilbert, engraved by the Dalziel Brothers, The Plays of Shakespeare, ed. Howard Staunton, Routledge, 1858-64Original

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The players are staying at the castle. Hamlet takes one of them aside. He asks him to put in a few new lines.

What goes in was settled already. Poison poured into the ear of a king asleep in an orchard. The same method the ghost described.

He sends for Horatio too. Watch the king’s face while it runs, he says. Because what he sees alone he cannot use.

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