Ham.

Words, words, words.

Pol.

What is the matter, my lord?

Ham.

Between who?

Pol.

I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.

Ham.

Slanders, sir: for the satirical slave says here that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Pol.

[Aside.] Though this be madness, yet there is a method in't.--

Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Ham.

Into my grave?

Pol.

Indeed, that is out o' the air. [Aside.] How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.--My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

Ham.

You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal,--except my life, except my life, except my life.

Pol.

Fare you well, my lord.

Ham.

These tedious old fools!

[Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

Pol.

You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.

Ros.

[To Polonius.] God save you, sir!

[Exit Polonius.]

Guil.

My honoured lord!

Ros.

My most dear lord!

Ham.

My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,

Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

Ros.

As the indifferent children of the earth.

Guil.

Happy in that we are not over-happy;

On fortune's cap we are not the very button.

Ham.

Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros.

Neither, my lord.

Ham.

Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

Guil.

Faith, her privates we.

Ham.

In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What's the news?

Ros.

None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.

Ham.

Then is doomsday near; but your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: what have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

Guil.

Prison, my lord!

Ham.

Denmark's a prison.

Ros.

Then is the world one.

Ham.

A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.

Ros.

We think not so, my lord.

Ham.

Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

Ros.

Why, then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind.

Ham.

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guil.

Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Ham.

A dream itself is but a shadow.

Ros.

Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow.

Ham.

Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch'd heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.

Ros. and Guild.

We'll wait upon you.

Ham.

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?

Ros.

To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

Ham.

Beggar that I am, I am even 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, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

Guil.

What should we say, my lord?

Ham.

Why, anything--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.

Ros.

To what end, my lord?

Ham.

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.

Ros.

[To Guildenstern.] What say you?

Ham.

[Aside.] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.--If you love me, hold not off.

Guil.

My lord, we were sent for.

Ham.

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 man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! 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.