Quote Analysis

The Player Queen continues her vow against remarriage, saying that if she takes a second husband it would be like killing her first husband a second time.

The chiasmus—'second time... second husband'—makes remarriage and murder grammatically interchangeable, as if one act inevitably repeats the other. The phrase 'kisses me in bed' sexualizes the violence, suggesting that the new husband's touch desecrates the dead man's memory. Spoken in rhymed couplets, the line has the feel of a proverb or moral law, as if the Player Queen is articulating a truth that should be universally recognized—which makes Gertrude's actual remarriage seem not just wrong but unnatural.

Use this to argue that Hamlet weaponizes theatrical convention—by putting his accusation into rhymed verse, he makes it sound like timeless moral wisdom rather than his personal grievance.