Good grief! How many times does the King express this same sentiment? It’s, like, one aphorism after another. The king is a cliché machine, generating non-stop “You’ll change your mind” sayings. This one being not much different than the one previous, nor much different than the one that will follow.
This speech is imminently cut-able. And I’m not sure what Shakespeare is doing here aside from maybe making fun of another writer’s style? It makes me wonder if one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries or predecessor’s wrote in this non-stop aphoristic rhyming couplet style and this speech of the Player King’s is a little dig or a shout out or something. It’s not funny enough to be Pyramus and Thisbe style meta-theatre and not serious enough to be Spanish Tragedy style – life crossing over the 4th wall. It’s an arch little list. And it does rather go on.
The Hamlet Project 