HAMLET         A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

CLAUDIUS      What dost thou mean by this?

HAMLET         Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

CLAUDIUS      Where is Polonius?

HAMLET         In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’th’ other place yourself. But if indeed you find him not within this month you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

CLAUDIUS      [to some Attendants] Go, seek him there!

HAMLET         ’A will stay till you come.

[Exeunt Attendants.]              (4.3.26-38)

Hamlet’s conversational, as if thinking aloud, a bit of philosophical musing: yes, a man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. King again, not emperor; Hamlet’s imagining a dead king, and Claudius is rattled: what dost thou mean by this? What are you suggesting? (The morbid philosophising is hardly original or even particularly inventive.) Oh, nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. Nothing in particular, no, but king again, going on his bathetic royal progress. (And the underlying implication, to Claudius, the king, his stepfather and uncle: you’re SHIT, you are. Perhaps also: you’re dead meat.)

Claudius leaves that well alone and tries again: where is Polonius? Come ON, running out of patience; there can be a bit more menace. Oh, he’s in heaven. Another tack, every bit as wilfully obtuse and obstructive, perhaps even mock outrage, of course he’s in heaven, how could you ever think otherwise? Send thither to see. (Just a bit of edge.) If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’ th’ other place yourself. Go to hell! (Can send you on your way, if you like?) And then Hamlet relents, with a bit of macabre comedy: but if indeed you find him not within this month you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby. That’s where he is—and if you leave it much longer, you’ll be able to smell him out.

Go, seek him there! Hurry! Goons exit at a run; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern perhaps wonder if they should go to, then stay, aware that yet again they’ve failed, that Hamlet’s run rings around them once more. A parting shot from Hamlet: ’A will stay till you come, perhaps mock reassurance, no need to run, guys, Polonius isn’t going anywhere. He must be exhausted, and he knows he’s cornered, but for the moment, Hamlet is still, sort of, coming out on top.