A very, very—pajock.

HORATIO You might have rhymed.

HAMLET O good Horatio, I’ll take the Ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?

HORATIO Very well, my lord.

HAMLET Upon the talk of the pois’ning?

HORATIO I did very well note him.

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

HAMLET Ah ha! Come, some music, come, the recorders,

For if the King like not the comedy,

Why then, belike he likes it not, pardie.

Come, some music.

GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

HAMLET Sir, a whole history.

GUILDENSTERN The King, sir—

HAMLET Ay, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERN Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.

HAMLET With drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERN No, my lord, rather with choler.

HAMLET Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to his doctor, for for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.

GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

HAMLET I am tame, sir. Pronounce.

GUILDENSTERN The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

HAMLET You are welcome.

GUILDENSTERN Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.

HAMLET Sir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERN What, my lord?

HAMLET Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s diseased. But, sir, such answers as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say?

ROSENCRANTZ Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

HAMLET O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration?

ROSENCRANTZ She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed. 319

HAMLET We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?

ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do freely bar the door of your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.

HAMLET Sir, I lack advancement.

ROSENCRANTZ How can that be when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark?

HAMLET Ay, but ‘while the grass grows ...’—the proverb is something musty.

Enter one with a recorder

O, the recorder. Let me see. (To Rosencrantz and

Guildenstern, taking them aside) To withdraw with you,

why do you go about to recover the wind of me as if

you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

HAMLET I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET ’Tis as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most excellent music. Look you, these are the stops.

GUILDENSTERN But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the skill.

HAMLET Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. ’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Enter Polonius

God bless you, sir.

POLONIUS My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

HAMLET Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?

POLONIUS By th’ mass, and ’tis: like a camel, indeed.

HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel.

POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET Or like a whale.

POLONIUS Very like a whale.

HAMLET Then will I come to my mother by and by. (Aside) They fool me to the top of my bent. (To Polonius) I will come by and by.

POLONIUS I will say so.

HAMLET ’By and by’ is easily said. Exit Polonius

Leave me, friends.

Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

’Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother.

O heart, lose not thy nature! Let not ever

The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.

Let me be cruel, not unnatural.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites—

How in my words somever she be shent,

To give them seals never my soul consent. Exit

3.3 Enter King Claudius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern

KING CLAUDIUS

I like him not, nor stands it safe with us

To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you.

I your commission will forthwith dispatch,

And he to England shall along with you.

The terms of our estate may not endure

Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow

Out of his lunacies.

GUILDENSTERN

We will ourselves provide.

Most holy and religious fear it is

To keep those many many bodies safe

That live and feed upon your majesty.

ROSENCRANTZ

The single and peculiar life is bound

With all the strength and armour of the mind

To keep itself from noyance; but much more

That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests

The lives of many. The cease of majesty

Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw

What’s near it with it. It is a massy wheel

Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things

Are mortised and adjoined, which when it falls

Each small annexment, petty consequence,

Attends the boist’rous ruin. Never alone

Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.

KING CLAUDIUS

Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage,

For we will fetters put upon this fear