HAMLET         Beggar that I am, I am ever poor in thanks, but I thank you, and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come, deal justly with me. Come, come, nay speak. GUILDENSTERN        What should we […]

GUILDENSTERN        Happy, in that we are not ever happy. On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button. 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. GUILDENSTERN        Faith, her privates we. HAMLET         In the secret parts of Fortune? […]

POLONIUS      Fare you well, my lord. HAMLET         These tedious old fools. Enter GUILDENSTERN and ROSENCRANTZ. POLONIUS      You go to seek the Lord Hamlet? There he is. ROSENCRANTZ         [to Polonius] God save you, sir. [Exit Polonius.] GUILDENSTERN        My honoured lord. ROSENCRANTZ         My most dear lord. HAMLET         My excellent good friends. How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! […]

POLONIUS      [aside] Though this be madness yet there is method in’t. — Will you walk out of the air, my lord? HAMLET         Into my grave. POLONIUS      [aside] Indeed, that’s out of the air. How pregnant sometimes his replies are – a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously […]

POLONIUS      What is the matter, my lord? HAMLET         Between who? POLONIUS      I mean the matter that you read, my lord. HAMLET         Slanders, sir. For the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plumtree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack […]

HAMLET         For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion – have you a daughter? POLONIUS      I have, my lord. HAMLET         Let her not walk i’th’ sun: conception is a blessing but as your daughter may conceive, friend – look to’t. POLONIUS      [aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my […]

Enter HAMLET . GERTRUDE    But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading. POLONIUS      Away, I do beseech you both, away. I’ll board him presently. O, give me leave. (Exeunt CLAUDIUS and GERTRUDE.) How does my good lord Hamlet? HAMLET                                 Well, God-a-mercy. POLONIUS      Do you know me, my lord? HAMLET         Excellent well, you are a fishmonger. POLONIUS      Not I, my lord. HAMLET         Then I would you were so honest a man. POLONIUS      […]

CLAUDIUS                  How may we try it further? POLONIUS      You know sometimes he walks four hours together Here in the lobby? GERTRUDE                So he does, indeed. POLONIUS      At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him. Be you and I behind an arras then, Mark the encounter: if he love her not And be not from his reason fallen thereon Let me be no assistant for a state But keep […]

CLAUDIUS      Do you think this? GERTRUDE                It may be, very like. POLONIUS      Hath there been such a time – I would fain know that – That I have positively said ’tis so When it proved otherwise? CLAUDIUS      Not that I know. POLONIUS      Take this from this if this be otherwise. If circumstances lead me I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid […]

POLONIUS      No, I went round to work And my young mistress thus I did bespeak: ‘Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star. This must not be.’ And then I prescripts gave her That she should lock herself from his resort, Admit no messengers, receive no tokens; Which done, she took the fruits of my advice, And he, repelled, a short tale to make, Fell into […]