Hamlet says the play-within-a-play is The Mouse-trap, a piece which is meant to prick the consciences of his mother, Gertrude, and uncle, Claudius. In the play, the queen asserts that she cannot marry again if her husband dies:
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.
This resembles the way Hamlet viewed his mother. In his eyes, she adored his father, but after his father's death, she married Claudius. Hamlet asks Gertrude what she thinks of the queen, and Gertrude responds with her famous line, “The lady protests too much, methinks.”
After the king’s nephew pours poison into the king’s ear, just as King Hamlet’s brother Claudius poured poison into his, young Hamlet announces that “the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife,” just as Claudius won over Gertrude. At this, Claudius stands and stops the play, declaring, “Give me some light: away!” To Hamlet, this is definitive proof of Claudius’s guilt.
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