Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET         Safely stowed! But soft, what noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come!

[Enter Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and others]

ROSENCRANTZ          What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

HAMLET         Compound it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.

ROSENCRANTZ          Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence and bear it to the chapel.

HAMLET         Do not believe it.

ROSENCRANTZ          Believe what?

HAMLET         That I can keep your council and not mine own.    (4.2.1-10)

Safely stowed! That’s that then, I’ve dealt with the body; there can be a kind of manic gleefulness about Hamlet, he knows the clock is ticking and that he’s almost out of options, so he might as well just roll with things and keep playing mad along the way. But soft, what noise? Who calls on Hamlet? (There can be shouting, growing closer.) Is someone finally on to me? O, here they come! This can be said with an eye-roll, well, look who it is, I might have guessed.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can approach this rather as they might an escaped rhinoceros, calmly, calmly, while the actual professionals (if there are any, the guys with ear-pieces, muttering into their cuffs) slowly make as if to corner him. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body? Just asking, politely, calmly, calmly; no sudden moves, just tell us, OK? This absolutely isn’t a confrontation, just a chat. Compound it with dust, whereto ’tis kin. Buried it! (Or possibly, if compound is an imperative, YOU bury it.) Rosencrantz tries again: tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence and bear it to the chapel. So, can you tell us where? Then we can take it to the chapel, wouldn’t that be better, wouldn’t that be nice?

Hamlet does some mad stuff. Do not believe it. Rosencrantz hasn’t learnt a thing, of course he bites: believe what? (Or else he’s playing along with the madman, engaging: what should we not believe?) That I can keep your council and not mine own. I know you’re acting on the king’s orders, that you have been all along—your little secret—don’t imagine that I can keep that a secret and at the same time not reveal my own business. Come ON, what kind of amateur do you think I am?