Hamlet
Act IV, Scene 3
Elsinore. Another room in Elsinore castle.
Costume design for Hamlet
John Miller, George Scharf, 1825
- Enter King and two or three.
Claudius
1 - 12- 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 lov’d of the distracted multitude,
- Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes,
- And where ’tis so, th’ offender’s scourge is weigh’d,
- But never the offense. To bear all smooth and even,
- This sudden sending him away must seem
- Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown
- By desperate appliance are reliev’d,
- Or not at all.
- Enter Rosencrantz.
- How now, what hath befall’n?
Rosencrantz
13 - 14- Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord,
- We cannot get from him.
Claudius
15- But where is he?
Rosencrantz
16- Without, my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure.
Claudius
17- Bring him before us.
Rosencrantz
18- Ho, bring in the lord.
- They, Hamlet and Guildenstern, enter.
Claudius
19- Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?
Hamlet
20- At supper.
Claudius
21- At supper? Where?
Hamlet
22 - 27- 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 ourselves for maggots; your fat king and your
- lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one
- table—that’s the end.
Claudius
28- Alas, alas!
Hamlet
29 - 30- 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
31- What dost thou mean by this?
Hamlet
32 - 33- Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through
- the guts of a beggar.
Claudius
34- Where is Polonius?
Hamlet
35 - 38- 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
39- To Attendants.
- Go seek him there.
Hamlet
40- ’A will stay till you come.
- Exeunt Attendants.
Claudius
41 - 47- Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety—
- Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
- For that which thou hast done—must send thee hence
- With fiery quickness; therefore prepare thyself,
- The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
- Th’ associates tend, and every thing is bent
- For England.
Hamlet
48- For England.
Claudius
49- Ay, Hamlet.
Hamlet
50- Good.
Claudius
51- So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.
Hamlet
52 - 53- I see a cherub that sees them. But come, for England!
- Farewell, dear mother.
Claudius
54- Thy loving father, Hamlet.
Hamlet
55 - 56- My mother: father and mother is man and wife, man and wife
- is one flesh—so, my mother. Come, for England!
- Exit.
Claudius
57 - 71- Follow him at foot, tempt him with speed aboard.
- Delay it not, I’ll have him hence tonight.
- Away, for every thing is seal’d and done
- That else leans on th’ affair. Pray you make haste.
- Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
- And, England, if my love thou hold’st at aught—
- As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
- Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
- After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
- Pays homage to us—thou mayst not coldly set
- Our sovereign process, which imports at full,
- By letters congruing to that effect,
- The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England,
- For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
- And thou must cure me. Till I know ’tis done,
- How e’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun.
- Exit.
From: Selwyn & Blount edition of Hamlet
John Austen, 1922