HAMLET         Madam, how like you this play?

GERTUDE       The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

HAMLET         O, but she’ll keep her word.

CLAUDIUS      Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?

HAMLET         No, no, they do but jest. Poison in jest. No offence i’th’ world.

CLAUDIUS      What do you call the play?

HAMLET         The Mousetrap. Marry, how tropically! This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke’s name, his wife Baptista. You shall see anon ’tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that? Your majesty and we that have free souls – it touches us not. Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.         (3.2.223-236)

As there is a brief pause in the action—of course there is—Hamlet can’t contain himself any longer: madam, how like you this play? what do you think, are you enjoying it? And Gertrude gets one of her best lines: the lady doth protest too much, methinks. Dry as you like, she’s putting it on, making far too much of a fuss for it to be genuine, all those vows and protestations. (Or utterly innocent. Or knowing, worried, she’s got Hamlet’s number, she knows him far too well, he’s up to something.) O, but she’ll keep her word, no, no, she definitely means it, Hamlet pushes back. Surely, how could you not, how could you mistrust such sincerity, such passion?

Claudius is worried, though: have you heard the argument? is there no offence in’t? What’s it about? (did he not watch the actual dumb-show? one of the play’s enduring mysteries…) Are you sure it’s not controversial, satirical, a bit close to the bone? Hamlet offers elaborate reassurance, taking the opportunity to insult Claudius as if he doesn’t quite understand how theatre works: no, no, they do but jest. It’s all just pretending! Poison in jest! Having a laugh, HILARIOUS stuff, not real, it wouldn’t deceive a BABY. No offence i’th’ world, nothing to worry about!

Claudius tries again: what do you call the play? The Mousetrap. (Hamlet might just be making this up.) Marry, how tropically! Isn’t that CLEVER, so WITTY and appropriate! You see—don’t you know?—this play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Docudrama, practically, based on true events. Gonzago is the duke’s name, his wife Baptista, no one you’d know, yes? You shall see anon ’tis a knavish piece of work, so cunning and dastardly, such villainy, as you’ll see in just a moment! But what of that, so what? Your majesty and we that have free souls, you and I, people like us, with our clean consciences, nothing to keep us awake at night—why should we worry? it touches us not. Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. The metaphor is of a horse that’s already saddlesore, blistered, rubbed raw, which is all the more vulnerable to further injury. (It’s a proverbial conceit, but it’s a vivid one, with a nasty edge, and it links to other language of sores, ulcers, abscesses in the play, invisible or hidden wounds; Hamlet has promised that he will tentClaudius to the quick, probe him, like a wound. And so he needles away.)