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Hamlet:
Ah, ha! Come, some music. Come, the recorders.
For if the king like not the comedy,
Why then, belike he likes it not, perdie.
Come, some music.
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Guildenstern:
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
Hamlet:
Sir, a whole history.
Guildenstern:
The King, sir—
Hamlet:
Ay, sir, what of him?
Guildenstern:
Is in his retirement, marvellous distempered.
Hamlet:
With drink, sir?
Guildenstern:
No, my lord; rather with choler.
Hamlet:
Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the doctor, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.
Guildenstern:
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.
Hamlet:
I am tame, sir, pronounce.
Guildenstern:
The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.
Hamlet:
You are welcome.
Guildenstern:
Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.
Hamlet:
Sir, I cannot.
Guildenstern:
What, my lord?
Hamlet:
Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s diseased. But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say,—
Rosencrantz:
Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.
Hamlet:
O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration?
Rosencrantz:
She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.
Hamlet:
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?
Rosencrantz:
My lord, you once did love me.
Hamlet:
And so I do still, by these pickers and stealers.
Rosencrantz:
Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.
Hamlet:
Sir, I lack advancement.
Rosencrantz:
How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark?
Hamlet:
Ay, sir, but while the grass grows—the proverb is something musty.
Re-enter the Players with recorders.