Clavis Libri

Literary device

Rhyming couplet

In verse drama, two consecutive lines that rhyme with each other, usually at the end of a scene or of a speech, like a closing that is fixed in memory.

In Hamlet

But I have that within which passeth show; / These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

The two lines rhyme on “show” and “woe” and close Hamlet’s speech with the air of a sentence. The rhyme stresses the distance between the grief felt, “within,” and the grief displayed.

Act I: The Ghost and the order of revenge, Hamlet, to Gertrude

The time is out of joint. O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right!
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Act I: The Ghost and the order of revenge, Hamlet

The play's the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
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Act II: Feigned madness and the theater trap, Hamlet, alone

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