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? […]

[Enter HAMLET and Attendants.] CLAUDIUS      Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius? HAMLET         At supper. CLAUDIUS      At supper! Where? HAMLET         Not where he eats but where ’a is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat […]

Enter ROSENCRANTZ [and GUILDENSTERN] and all the rest. CLAUDIUS      How now, what hath befallen? ROSENCRANTZ          Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord, We cannot get from him. CLAUDIUS                  But where is he? ROSENCRANTZ          Without, my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure. CLAUDIUS      Bring him before us. ROSENCRANTZ                      Ho! Bring in the lord!                        (4.3.11-15) How now, what hath befallen? They had ONE job […]

Enter CLAUDIUS and two or three. CLAUDIUS      I have sent to seek him and to find the body. How dangerous is it that this man goes loose! Yet must not we put the strong law on him: He’s loved of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgement but their eyes, And where ’tis so th’offender’s scourge is weighed But never the […]

ROSENCRANTZ          My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the King. HAMLET         The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King is a thing. GUILDENSTERN        A thing, my lord? HAMLET         Of nothing. Bring me to him.             (Exeunt.)         (4.2.23-28) Rosencrantz tries […]

HAMLET         Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! What replication should be made by the son of a king? ROSENCRANTZ          Take you me for a sponge, my lord? HAMLET         Ay, sir – that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end: he keeps […]

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 […]

CLAUDIUS      Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends And let them know both what we mean to do And what’s untimely done. [            ] Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank, Transports his poisoned shot, may miss our name And hit the woundless air. O come away, My soul is full of discord and dismay. (Exeunt.)     (4.1.38-45) Claudius […]

CLAUDIUS      O Gertrude, come away. The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed We must with all our majesty and skill Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern! Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Friends both, go join you with some further aid: Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain And from his […]

CLAUDIUS      But so much was our love, We would not understand what was most fit, But like the owner of a foul disease, To keep it from divulging, let it feed Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone? GERTRUDE     To draw apart the body he hath killed, O’er whom – his very madness like some ore Among a mineral of metals base Shows itself pure […]