to me it is a prison. ROSENCRANTZ Why then, your ambition makes it one;'tis too narrow for your mind. HAMLET O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that Ihave bad dreams. GUILDENSTERN Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. HAMLET A dream itself is but a shadow. ROSENCRANTZ Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow. HAMLET Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN We'll wait upon you. HAMLET No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore? ROSENCRANTZ To visit you, my lord; no other occasion. HAMLET Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks;but Ithank 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, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak. GUILDENSTERN What should we say, my lord? HAMLET Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to colour:
I know the good king and queen have sent for you. ROSENCRANTZ To what end, my lord? HAMLET That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no? ROSENCRANTZ [Aside to GUILDENSTERN] What say you? HAMLET [Aside] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.--If you love me, hold not off. GUILDENSTERN My lord, we were sent for. HAMLET I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so. ROSENCRANTZ My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts. HAMLET Why did you laugh then, when I said 'man delights not me'? ROSENCRANTZ To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they coming, to offer you service. HAMLET He that plays the king shall be welcome;his majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't. What players are they? ROSENCRANTZ Even those you were wont to take delight in, the tragedians of the city. HAMLET How chances it they travel? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. ROSENCRANTZ I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation. HAMLET Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? are they so followed? ROSENCRANTZ No, indeed, are they not. HAMLET How comes it? do they grow rusty? ROSENCRANTZ Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages--so they call them--that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither. HAMLET What, are they children? who maintains 'em? how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players--as it is most like, if their means are no better--their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession? ROSENCRANTZ 'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question. HAMLET Is't possible? GUILDENSTERN O, there has been much throwing about of brains. HAMLET Do the boys carry it away? ROSENCRANTZ Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. HAMLET It is not very strange; for mine uncle is king of Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little.
'Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.
Flourish of trumpets within GUILDENSTERN There are the players. HAMLET Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore.
Your hands, come then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. GUILDENSTERN In what, my dear lord? HAMLET I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
