Hamlet
Act IV, Scene 2
Elsinore. Another room in Elsinore castle.
Elsinore
From Charles Kean's scrapbook
- Enter Hamlet.
Hamlet
1- Safely stow’d.
Gentleman
2- Within.
- Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
Hamlet
3 - 4- But soft, what noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they
- come.
- Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Rosencrantz
5- What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
Hamlet
6- Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.
Rosencrantz
7 - 8- Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence,
- And bear it to the chapel.
Hamlet
9- Do not believe it.
Rosencrantz
10- Believe what?
Hamlet
11 - 13- That I can keep your counsel and not mine own. Besides, to
- be demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by
- the son of a king?
Rosencrantz
14- Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
Hamlet
15 - 20- 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 them, like an ape an apple, in the
- corner of his jaw, first mouth’d, to be last swallow’d. When
- he needs what you have glean’d, it is but squeezing you,
- and, sponge, you shall be dry again.
Rosencrantz
21- I understand you not, my lord.
Hamlet
22- I am glad of it, a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
Rosencrantz
23 - 24- My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us
- to the king.
Hamlet
25 - 26- The body is with the King, but the King is not with the
- body. The King is a thing—
Guildenstern
27- A thing, my lord?
Hamlet
28- Of nothing, bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.
- Exeunt.
What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
From: Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare
Charles Cowden Clarke, Mary Cowden Clarke, 1866