Hamlet (11 page)

POLONIUS
    You go to seek my lord Hamlet; there he is.

ROSENCRANTZ
    God save you, sir!

To Polonius

GUILDENSTERN
    Mine honoured lord!

ROSENCRANTZ
    My most dear lord!

HAMLET
    My excellent good friends! How dost thou,

Guildenstern? O, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

ROSENCRANTZ
    As the
indifferent
²³³
children of the earth.

GUILDENSTERN
    
Happy
²³⁴
, in that we are not over-happy:

On fortune’s cap we are not the very
button
²³⁵
.

HAMLET
    Nor the soles of her shoe?

ROSENCRANTZ
    Neither, my lord.

HAMLET
    Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of

her
favours
²³⁹
?

GUILDENSTERN
    Faith, her
privates
²⁴⁰
we.

HAMLET
    In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true: she is a

strumpet
²⁴²
. What’s the news?

ROSENCRANTZ
    None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.

HAMLET
    Then is doomsday near. But your news is not true.

Let me question more in
particular
²⁴⁵
: what have you, my good

friends, deserved at the hands of fortune that she sends you

to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN
    Prison, my lord?

HAMLET
    Denmark’s a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ
    Then is the world one.

HAMLET
    A goodly one, in which there are many
confines
²⁵¹
,

wards
²⁵²
and dungeons, Denmark being one o’th’worst.

ROSENCRANTZ
    We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET
    Why, then, ’tis none to you; for there is nothing

either good or bad but thinking makes it so: to me it is a

prison.

ROSENCRANTZ
    Why then, your ambition makes it one: ’tis too

narrow for your mind.

HAMLET
    O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count

myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad

dreams.

GUILDENSTERN
    Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very

substance of the ambitious
²⁶³
is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAMLET
    A dream itself is but a shadow.

ROSENCRANTZ
    Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a

quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.

HAMLET
    
Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs
²⁶⁷

and
outstretched
²⁶⁸
heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to

th’court? For, by my
fay
²⁶⁹
, I cannot reason.

BOTH
    We’ll
wait upon
²⁷⁰
you.

HAMLET
    
No such matter
: I will not
sort
²⁷¹
you with the rest of

my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am

most
dreadfully attended.
But, in the
beaten way
²⁷³
of

friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

ROSENCRANTZ
    To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

HAMLET
    Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I

thank you, and sure, dear friends, my thanks are
too dear a
²⁷⁷

halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is

it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me: come, come;

nay, speak.

GUILDENSTERN
    What should we say, my lord?

HAMLET
    Why,
anything, but to the purpose
²⁸²
. You were sent

for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks which

your
modesties
have not craft enough to
colour
²⁸⁴
: I know the

good king and queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZ
    To what end, my lord?

HAMLET
    That you must teach me. But let me
conjure
²⁸⁷
you, by

the rights of our fellowship, by the
consonancy
²⁸⁸
of our youth,

by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by
what
²⁸⁹

more dear a better
proposer
could
charge
²⁹⁰
you withal, be

even
²⁹¹
and direct with me whether you were sent for or no?

Aside to Guildenstern?

ROSENCRANTZ
    What say you?

Aside?

HAMLET
    Nay, then, I have an eye
of
²⁹³
you.—

If you love me, hold not off.

GUILDENSTERN
    My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET
    I will tell you why; so shall
my anticipation prevent
²⁹⁶

your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen

moult no feather
²⁹⁸
. I have of late — but wherefore I know not

— lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercise
²⁹⁹
; and

indeed it goes so
heavily
³⁰⁰
with my disposition that this goodly

frame
, the earth, seems to me a
sterile promontory
³⁰¹
, this most

excellent canopy, the air, look you, this
brave
³⁰²
o’erhanging

firmament
, this majestical roof
fretted
³⁰³
with golden fire, why,

it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent

congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man!

How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and

moving how
express
³⁰⁷
and admirable, in action how like an

angel, in
apprehension
³⁰⁸
how like a god! The beauty of the

world, the paragon of animals — and yet, to me, what is this

quintessence
³¹⁰
of dust? Man delights not me — no, nor

woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZ
    My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAMLET
    Why did you laugh when I said ‘Man delights not

me’?

ROSENCRANTZ
    To think, my lord, if you delight not in man,

what
Lenten entertainment
³¹⁶
the players shall receive from

you: we
coted
³¹⁷
them on the way, and hither are they coming

to offer you service.

HAMLET
    He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty

shall have
tribute
³²⁰
of me: the adventurous knight shall use

his
foil and target
: the lover shall not sigh
gratis
³²¹
: the

humorous
³²²
man shall end his part in peace: the clown shall

make those laugh whose lungs are
tickled o’th’
sear
³²³
: and the

lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall
halt
³²⁴

for’t. What players are they?

ROSENCRANTZ
    Even those you were
wont
³²⁶
to take delight in, the

tragedians of the city.

HAMLET
    How chances it they travel? Their
residence
³²⁸
, both in

reputation and profit, was better both ways.

ROSENCRANTZ
    I think their
inhibition
³³⁰
comes by the means of

the
late innovation
³³¹
.

HAMLET
    Do they hold the same
estimation
³³²
they did when I

was in the city? Are they so followed?

ROSENCRANTZ
    No, indeed, they are not.

HAMLET
    How comes it? Do they grow rusty?

ROSENCRANTZ
    Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace.

But there is, sir, an
eyrie
of children, little
eyases
, that
cry out
³³⁷

on the top of question and are most
tyrannically
³³⁸
clapped

for’t: these are now the fashion, and so
berattle the common
³³⁹

stages — so they call them — that
many wearing rapiers are
³⁴⁰

afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.

HAMLET
    What, are they children? Who maintains ’em? How

are they
escoted
? Will they pursue the
quality
no longer than
³⁴³

they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should

grow themselves to
common
players — as it is most
like
³⁴⁵
, if

their
means
³⁴⁶
are no better — their writers do them wrong, to

make them exclaim against their own
succession
³⁴⁷
?

ROSENCRANTZ
    Faith, there has been much to-do on both sides,

and the nation holds it no sin to
tar
³⁴⁹
them to controversy.

There was for a while
no money bid for argument unless the
³⁵⁰

poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

HAMLET
    Is’t possible?

GUILDENSTERN
    O, there has been much throwing about of

brains.

HAMLET
    Do the boys
carry it away
³⁵⁵
?

ROSENCRANTZ
    Ay, that they do, my lord: Hercules and
his load
³⁵⁶

too.

HAMLET
    It is not strange, for mine uncle is King of Denmark,

and those that would make
mows
³⁵⁹
at him while my father

lived, give twenty, forty, an hundred
ducats
³⁶⁰
a-piece for his

picture in little
. There is something in this
more than
³⁶¹

natural, if
philosophy
³⁶²
could find it out.

GUILDENSTERN
    There are the players.

HAMLET
    Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands,

come: the
appurtenance
³⁶⁵
of welcome is fashion and ceremony:

let me
comply
with you in the
garb
, lest
my extent
³⁶⁶
to the

players — which, I tell you, must show
fairly
³⁶⁷
outward —

should more appear like
entertainment
³⁶⁸
than yours. You are

welcome: but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN
    In what, my dear lord?

HAMLET
    I am
but mad north-north-west
³⁷¹
: when the wind is

southerly I know a hawk from a
handsaw
³⁷²
.

POLONIUS
    Well be with you, gentlemen.

HAMLET
    Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too — at each ear

a hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet out of his

swathing-clouts
³⁷⁶
.

ROSENCRANTZ
    
Happily
³⁷⁷
he’s the second time come to them, for

they say an old man is twice a child.

HAMLET
    I will prophesy: he comes to tell me of the players,

mark it.—
You say right, sir: for a Monday morning, ’twas so
³⁸⁰

indeed.

POLONIUS
    My lord, I have news to tell you.

HAMLET
    My lord, I have news to tell you.

When
Roscius
³⁸⁴
, an actor in Rome—

POLONIUS
    The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET
    
Buzz, buzz
³⁸⁶
!

POLONIUS
    Upon mine honour—

HAMLET
    Then came each actor on his
ass
³⁸⁸
—

POLONIUS
    The best actors in the world, either for tragedy,

comedy, history, pastoral, pastorical-comical, historical-

pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-

pastoral,
scene individable
, or
poem unlimited
.
Seneca
³⁹²

cannot be too
heavy
, nor
Plautus
too light.
For the law of
³⁹³

writ and the liberty, these are the only men.

HAMLET
    
O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst
³⁹⁵

thou!

POLONIUS
    What a treasure had he, my lord?

HAMLET
    Why,

‘
One fair daughter and no more
³⁹⁹
,

     The which he loved
passing
⁴⁰⁰
well.’