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Rosencrantz:
Believe what?
Hamlet:
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:
Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
Hamlet:
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, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.
Rosencrantz:
I understand you not, my lord.
Hamlet:
I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
Rosencrantz:
My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the King.
Hamlet:
The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King is a thing—
Guildenstern:
A thing, my lord!
Hamlet:
Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.
(Exeunt.)
Scene Three. Another room in the Castle.
Enter King, attended.
King:
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 judgement, but their eyes;
And where ’tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weigh’d,
But never the offence. 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:
Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord,
We cannot get from him.
King:
But where is he?
Rosencrantz:
Without, my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure.
King:
Bring him before us.
Rosencrantz:
Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.
Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern.
King:
Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?
Hamlet:
At supper.
King:
At supper? Where?
Hamlet:
Not where he eats, but where he 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.
King:
Alas, alas!