Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

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, with choler.

HAMLET         Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the doctor, for for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into 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.    (3.2.288-302)

It’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, back again, perhaps with obvious reluctance, and Guildenstern’s drawn the short straw: good my lord—he’s scrupulously, nervously polite: good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you. Er, have you got a moment? Sir, a whole history, you can have as many words as you like! (Hamlet is confident he’ll always come off best in any encounter with these two.) Um. The King, sir—ay, sir (pronounced with emphasis, insolently), what of him? What’s the big deal, go on, spit it out? The King is in his retirement marvellous distempered. It’s formal, euphemistic, circumlocutory, a form of words agreed on with Rosencrantz, perhaps. The King is RAGING. He is SO PISSED OFF, you are in SUCH TROUBLE. But this is all Hamlet needs to feign incomprehension: distempered, with drink, sir? Is he DRUNK? (How scandalous, how sadly familiar.) No, my lord, with choler. He’s RAGING, he’s SO PISSED OFF etc. He is ANGRY. But choler allows Hamlet to treat this as a medical condition, at least superficially: your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the doctor, well, it’d be much more sensible (you idiot) to consult his doctor, then, wouldn’t it, for for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into more choler. If I were to purge him—implicitly by bloodletting—well, he probably wouldn’t like that very much, would he? He’d be even angrier, wouldn’t he?

Guildenstern can’t cope, he’s only got a bit of a script that he and Rosencrantz have worked out, and he really doesn’t want to be here, but he doesn’t want to make Claudius angrier either. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and start not so wildly from my affair. Please, can you stop talking like a crazy person and focus on what I’m saying? Please? Just engage, for a moment? I am tame, sir, pronounce. Alright then, I’ll behave. Spit it out!