Act 2; Scene 2

A room in the Castle.

Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Attendants.

KING.
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Engaged to spy on Hamlet as Reynaldo is spying on Laertes
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet’s transformation; so I call it,
Since nor th’exterior nor the inward man
Resembles that it was. What it should be, He seems to have changed and not for the better
More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him
So much from th’understanding of himself,
I cannot dream of. I entreat you both
That, being of so young days brought up with him,
And since so neighbour’d to his youth and humour, Do they really know Hamlet though? They think they are close to him, but they are not. He is false to them. Appearance vs. reality. Plus, like most kids, he has changed after going off to college.
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
Some little time, so by your companies
To draw him on to pleasures and to gather,
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus
That, open’d, lies within our remedy. See if you can learn why he is behaving as he is, because we don’t believe it has been caused by his father’s death so that we may cure him of his ills. But they already know what’s wrong with him…He’s upset about his father’s death, and there’s no way to fix that. So is this a ruse by Claudius to make it appear that he cares about Hamlet when in truth, he only cares about himself?

QUEEN.
Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of you,
And sure I am, two men there are not living Not true. He likes Horatio better than them, but Horatio hasn’t betrayed him. New friends, adult friends vs. old childhood friends.
To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
To show us so much gentry and good will
As to expend your time with us awhile,
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king’s remembrance. We’ll pay you a king’s ransom if you find out what is troubling my son.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Both your majesties
Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to entreaty.

GUILDENSTERN.
We both obey,
And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,
To lay our service freely at your feet
To be commanded. You don’t have to command us to spy on Hamlet; we’ll do it willingly. You don’t need to pay us, but I expect payment or a favor or two down the line wouldn’t be rejected. We scratch your back, and then sometime later, you can scratch ours. A true friend wouldn’t have spied on him for money or influence. A true friend would want to help Hamlet for no other reason than to help him, not because it might gain them something.

KING.
Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

QUEEN.
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz. By repeating what the other says, are Gertrude and Claudius showing that they are two sides of the same coin? Two separate entities working as one.
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changed son. Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

GUILDENSTERN.
Heavens make our presence and our practices
Pleasant and helpful to him.

QUEEN.
Ay, amen.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and some Attendants.]

Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS.
Th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
Are joyfully return’d. This accomplishes two things: A. The fair amount of time that it has taken the ambassadors to travel to and from Norway and speak with Old Fortinbras. B. To dispel the notion that the Ghost is an omen of the coming war with young Fortinbras, because there will be no war with Fortinbras.

KING.
Thou still hast been the father of good news.

POLONIUS.
Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege,
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
Both to my God and to my gracious King: But the rightful king is dead
And I do think,—or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath us’d to do—that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.

KING.
O speak of that, that do I long to hear.

POLONIUS.
Give first admittance to th’ambassadors;
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.

KING.
Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.

[Exit Polonius.]

He tells me, my sweet queen, that he hath found
The head and source of all your son’s distemper.

QUEEN.
I doubt it is no other but the main,
His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage. Knows her son better than either Claudius or Polonius and admits that her marriage to Claudius was hasty.

KING.
Well, we shall sift him.

Enter Polonius with Voltemand and Cornelius.

Welcome, my good friends!
Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?

VOLTEMAND.
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew’s levies, which to him appear’d
To be a preparation ’gainst the Polack;
But better look’d into, he truly found
It was against your Highness; whereat griev’d, Fortinbras was pretending to attack the Poles when Denmark was his actual target
That so his sickness, age, and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,
Receives rebuke from Norway; and in fine,
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give th’assay of arms against your Majesty. Fortinbras is most likely just saying what his uncle wants to hear until he becomes king, and then it’s game on with Denmark. He’s going to want the lands his father lost to the Dane back at some point and probably going to try to take them.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
And his commission to employ those soldiers
So levied as before, against the Polack:
With an entreaty, herein further shown, Old Fortinbras gave enough money to supply his nephew’s army if he attacked the Poles and left Denmark alone, but how long will that last? Right up until Old Fortinbras is in the ground, and then Fortinbras will do as he pleases.
[Gives a paper.]
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such regards of safety and allowance
As therein are set down. Why does Fortinbras need to pass through Danish territory to reach Poland? Would you trust a horde of Vikings to march through your country and not attack it? Hello! They’re Vikings! Why couldn’t they just sail around Denmark? They sailed to Greenland, Canada, England, and France. Surely they could make it around Denmark, or maybe Denmark is that large in this era. Is Fortinbras a contrast to Hamlet? Like Hamlet, he has also lost his father and attempted to lash out because of his grief, but has matured and set aside his anger to become more reasonable. Or is Fortinbras Apollo, the sun, a bright, almost god-like figure who is decisive and knows the truth? Laertes is also decisive when Polonius is killed, but unlike both Fortinbras and Laertes, Hamlet is unsure how his father died. 

KING.
It likes us well;
And at our more consider’d time we’ll read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.
Go to your rest, at night we’ll feast together:.
Most welcome home. He’s going to party again. Does he ever do anything else?

[Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius.]

POLONIUS.
This business is well ended.
My liege and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, Inadvertently making himself a fool by talking in circles like Dogberry in Much Ado about Nothing, who pretends to be riding a horse?
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it; for to define true madness,
What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

QUEEN.
More matter, with less art. Get to the point.

POLONIUS.
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true ’tis pity;
And pity ’tis ’tis true. A foolish figure,
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him then. And now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend,
I have a daughter—have whilst she is mine—
Who in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise.
[Reads.]
To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia—
That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; ‘beautified’ is a vile artifice, false appearance vs reality
phrase: but you shall hear.
[Reads.]
these; in her excellent white bosom, these, &c.

QUEEN.
Came this from Hamlet to her?

POLONIUS.
Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.
[Reads.]
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
     Doubt that the sun doth move,
   Doubt truth to be a liar,
     But never doubt I love.
O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon my groans. But that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
  Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,
     HAMLET. I’m sure her heart went pitter-patter when she heard that. Hamlet is a better writer than that and wittier. He could do better if he meant it. He’s likely putting on a false attraction, knowing that Polonius will read it and ultimately Claudius will too. But at some point, Hamlet was indeed attracted to Ophelia before his father’s death and his mother’s marriage. Maybe he even loved her, but like Gertrude’s love for the Dane, it doesn’t last, and Hamlet is using her for his own devices, mainly to confound Claudius and Polonius. Could also be a reflection of Laertes…fickleness? Hamlet and Laertes are character twins.
This in obedience hath my daughter show’d me;
And more above, hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.

KING.
But how hath she receiv’d his love?

POLONIUS.
What do you think of me?

KING.
As of a man faithful and honourable.

POLONIUS.
I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing,
As I perceiv’d it, I must tell you that,                                                                                                                                                Before my daughter told me, what might you, That is a lie. He only knows of it because he overheard Laertes giving advice to Ophelia about Hamlet, and before that, didn’t have a clue. He sees an opportunity to gain power by gaining influence over the future king.
Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play’d the desk or table-book,
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or look’d upon this love with idle sight,
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star. However, Polonius is ambitious and would like nothing better than to be the father of the future Queen. Nothing causes young lovers to want to be together quicker than telling them they can’t be together. So in a weird way, he is trying to manipulate Hamlet into wanting Ophelia more, and because of Hamlet’s “melancholy,” is he triumphantly thinks he has succeeded. However, Hamlet is smarter than Polonius and has outmaneuvered him.
This must not be.’ And then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,
And he, repulsed,—a short tale to make—
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we wail for. Hamlet has successfully distracted them from the ghost and the possibility of someone finding out that he suspects Claudius of killing his father.

KING.
Do you think ’tis this?

QUEEN.
It may be, very likely.

POLONIUS.
Hath there been such a time, I’d fain know that,
That I have positively said ‘’Tis so,’
When it prov’d otherwise? Have I ever led you astray?

KING.
Not that I know.

POLONIUS.
Take this from this, if this be otherwise.
[Points to his head and shoulder.]
If circumstances lead me, I will find Hamlet takes him up on the offer because he’s wrong. Is that the old saying “May God strike me dead if I am…”?
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.

KING.
How may we try it further? Use underhanded methods to find out the truth, like Polonius did with his son.

POLONIUS.
You know sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.

QUEEN.
So he does indeed.

POLONIUS.
At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him. Is loose another pun on promiscuity? Loose morals?
Be you and I behind an arras then, Why is Polonius always hiding behind tapestries? It’s probably because he’s a sneaky little devil.
Mark the encounter. If he love her not,
And be not from his reason fall’n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.

KING.
We will try it.

Enter Hamlet, reading.

QUEEN.
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

POLONIUS.
Away, I do beseech you, both away
I’ll board him presently. O, give me leave.

[Exeunt King, Queen and Attendants.]

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

HAMLET.
Well, God-a-mercy.

POLONIUS.
Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET.
Excellent well. You are a fishmonger. Vulgar pun on the word pimp? Realizes that Polonius is trying to tie Hamlet’s madness to his unrequited love for Ophelia. Fishing for information.

POLONIUS.
Not I, my lord.

HAMLET.
Then I would you were so honest a man.

POLONIUS.
Honest, my lord?

HAMLET  Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to
be one man picked out of ten thousand.

POLONIUS.
That’s very true, my lord.

HAMLET  For if the sun breed maggots in a dead
dog, being a good kissing carrion—Have you a daughter? Pun on son and breeding maggots in a dead dog or a dead bitch?

POLONIUS.
I have, my lord.

HAMLET.
Let her not walk i’ th’ sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to’t. Warning him to keep Ophelia away from him. Checking to see if he is loyal to his father and thus him or if he has switched his loyalty to Claudius.Cassandra guarding her virginity from Apollo the God of the Sun.

POLONIUS, aside  How say you by that? Still harping on
my daughter. Yet he knew me not at first; he said I
was a fishmonger. He is far gone. And truly, in my
youth, I suffered much extremity for love, very near
this. I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET.
Words, words, words.

POLONIUS.
What is the matter, my lord?

HAMLET.
Between who?

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

HAMLET.
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here Mocking Polonius to his face
that old men have gray 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, Hams: Bad actors
though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I
hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for
yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if, like a crab,
you could go backward. Ham, crab meat, and non-kosher meat are unclean. Did S. have any friends who were Jewish?

POLONIUS.
[Aside.] Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.—
Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

HAMLET.
Into my grave?

POLONIUS  Indeed, that’s out of the air. Aside. How
pregnant sometimes his replies are! A happiness Pregnant, Concieve, Conception all puns on childbirth or the act of getting pregnant. One of the reasons why Clytemnestra killed Cassandra was that she could be pregnant with Agamemnon’s child.
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 lord,
I will take my leave of you.

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

POLONIUS.
Fare you well, my lord.

HAMLET
These tedious old fools. Reference to the Chorus who were often depicted as meddling old fools who were always sticking their noses in places they didn’t belong.

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

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

ROSENCRANTZ.
[To Polonius.] God save you, sir.

[Exit Polonius.]

GUILDENSTERN.
My honoured lord!

ROSENCRANTZ.
My most dear lord!

HAMLET.
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern?                                                                                                                     Ah, Rosencrantz. Good lads, how do ye both?

ROSENCRANTZ.
As the indifferent children of the earth.

GUILDENSTERN.
Happy in that we are not over-happy;
On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.

HAMLET.
Nor the soles of her shoe? He is subtly feeling them out to determine if they are with him or aligned with Claudius against him.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Neither, my lord.

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

GUILDENSTERN.
Faith, her privates we. Vulgar puns, they are prostituting themselves for Claudius, turning themselves into women, whores, for him by obeying his commands as Gertrude does. A man would stand up to him, and in this case, not cater to his desire to find out the cause of Hamlet’s melancholy. A man would also kill his father’s murderer, but Hamlet is not a man yet; he’s a boy still.

HAMLET.
In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What’s the news?

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

HAMLET  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?

GUILDENSTERN.
Prison, my lord?

HAMLET.
Denmark’s a prison. Reference to Purgatory being a type of prison, where men’s souls are punished for their sins. Plus, he is being held in Denmark against his will.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Then is the world one.

HAMLET.
A goodly one; in which there are many confines,                                                                                                                         wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ th’ worst.

ROSENCRANTZ.
We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET  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.

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

HAMLET.
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. Bad thoughts. Prisoners are only limited by their thinking; as long as the mind and soul is free, it doesn’t matter if he is in a small cell or a nutshell, he is free. You can’t truly enslave a man because you can’t enslave his mind or his soul unless he allows it.

GUILDENSTERN.
Which dreams, indeed, are ambition;                                                                                                                                                   for the very substance of the ambitious is merely                                                                                                                               the shadow of a dream. Ambitions of a throne and power

HAMLET.
A dream itself is but a shadow. Appearance vs reality. Dreams can appear as reality, but they are merely shadows of reality. It is a state of mind that determines if one is living in a paradise or a prison. You can live in a prison and still believe you are in a paradise. You cannot put a man’s soul or his mind in prison or wrap either in chains, and as long as his mind and soul are free, so is the man. Men in even the worst prisons can still be free if only in their minds. The mind controls the perception of the environment and shapes the environment into what it wants it to be through imagination and belief. Taming of the shrew where Petruchio tells Katherine outlandish things, and she happily goes along with them after a while. She bends to his will and his perception of reality, which then becomes her perception of reality. Is this where the idea that the ghost is a figment of Hamlet’s imagination comes from?

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 th’ court? For, by my fay, I cannot reason.

ROSENCRANTZ and 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; I’m a prince but I do not own what should rightfully be mine, the crown and country of Denmark
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, come, deal justly with me. Come, come; nay, speak. Questioning if they are truly there of their own volition or have they been sent for by Claudius

GUILDENSTERN.
What should we say, my lord? The truth would be nice.

HAMLET  Anything but to th’ purpose. You were sent
for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks
which your modesties have not craft enough to
color. I know the good king and queen have sent for you. Don’t bother lying, I know Claudius sent for you. It’s written all over your faces.

ROSENCRANTZ.
To what end, my lord? Their denial here is what causes their deaths later because Hamlet now knows that he cannot trust them, unlike Horatio and Marcellus

 .
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 can charge you withal: be even and direct
with me whether you were sent for or no.

ROSENCRANTZ.
[To Guildenstern.] What say you? What should we say?

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 molt 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 appeareth nothing to me Reference to the sun: Apollo, but in the Christian tradition, Apollo is evil because he isn’t Christ.
but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
What a piece of work is a 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 Satan, an angel, becomes a beast and so attempts to turn God’s creations beastly as well out of jealousy because God would not put angels over men.
beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and Serpent in Eden was the most cunning of God’s creatures, and after it seduced Eve into eating from the tree, it was sentenced to spend the rest of eternity crawling on its belly and eating dust. Lust. Rebellion against God’s commands.
yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man
delights not me, no, nor women 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’?I cannot trust you.

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 Acting like a king (Claudius) but not a true king (Hamet’s father)
Majesty shall have tribute on me. 
The adventurous knight shall use his foil and target, the lover shall Acting like a knight (Hamlet or Laertes? Both? But not a true knight. Who is the lover who truly loves Ophelia? They both claim to, but neither one acts like it.) ‍ ‍
not sigh gratis, the humorous man shall end his Humorous man Horatio; the clown Polonius part in peace, the clown shall make those laugh
whose lungs are tickle o’ th’ sear, and the lady Gertrude
shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall
halt for ’t. What players are they? Players are acting; it’s not real life. They are pretending like he is. Appearance vs. reality.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Even those you were wont to take such 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, they are not.

HAMLET.
How comes it? Do they grow rusty?

ROSENCRANTZ   Nay, their endeavor keeps in the wonted Innocence is in fashion rather than the contrivance of veteran actors.
pace. But there is, sir, an aerie of children, little
eyases, that cry out on the top of question and are eyases “Fresh from the nest”
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 tar
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 my uncle is King of Claudius was made fun of when the Dane was alive is now revered but the reverence is unearned and Claudius is playing at being a King. He is not a real King like The Dane. Is this Claudius’ motive for killing his brother because he got tired of being second best. Like Clytemnestra was second best to Helen?
Denmark, and those that would make mouths at
him while my father lived give twenty, forty, fifty,
a hundred ducats apiece 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. Th’ 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 outwards, should
more appear like entertainment than yours. You are
welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. I am not really mad; I’m pretending like the players

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. I’m only mad some of the time

Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS.
Well be with you, gentlemen.

HAMLET  Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too—at
each ear a hearer! That great baby you see there is
not yet out of his swaddling clouts. Polonius is like the new troupe of innocent actors in that he is not as well-trained as an adult actor or as good an actor as say Hamlet or Claudius, who appears to care for Gertrude and Hamlet when he only really cares about himself. 
ROSENCRANTZ  Haply he is the second time come to
them, for they say an old man is twice a child..                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
HAMLET  I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the
players; mark it.—You say right, sir, a Monday Hamlet is one step ahead of Polonius
morning, ’twas then indeed.

POLONIUS.
My lord, I have news to tell you.

HAMLET.
My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome— Polonius does not know who Roscius was.

POLONIUS.
The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET.
Buzz, buzz.

POLONIUS.
Upon my honour.

HAMLET.
Then came each actor on his ass—

POLONIUS  The best actors in the world, either for
tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or
poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty,
these are the only men. Trying to show off how smart he is, but inadvertently reveals that he is dumb..

HAMLET.
O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou! Jephthah sacrificed his daughter, as Polonius will sacrifice Ophelia. As Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia for glory and victory in a war.

POLONIUS.
What treasure had he, my lord?

HAMLET.
Why—
   ’One fair daughter, and no more,
   The which he loved passing well.’

POLONIUS.
[Aside.] Still on my daughter.

HAMLET.
Am I not i’ th’ right, old Jephthah?

POLONIUS.
If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well. Agamemnon supposedly loved Iphigenia too, but he still sacrificed her because of his own ambitions. Like Hamlet sacrifices Ophelia for his ambition of revenge.

HAMLET.
Nay, that follows not.

POLONIUS.
What follows then, my lord?

HAMLET   Why,
 As by lot, God wot
and then, you know,
 It came to pass, as most like it was—
the first row of the pious chanson will show you
more, for look where my abridgment comes.

Enter four or five Players.

You are welcome, masters; welcome all.—I am glad
to see thee well.—Welcome, good friends.—O my
old friend! Why, thy face is valanced since I saw thee
last. Com’st thou to beard me in Denmark?—What,
my young lady and mistress! By ’r Lady, your Ladyship
is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by
the altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a
piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the
ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en to ’t
like French falconers, fly at anything we see. We’ll
have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your
quality. Come, a passionate speech.

FIRST PLAYER.
What speech, my lord?

HAMLET  I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it
was never acted, or, if it was, not above once; for
the play, I remember, pleased not the million:
’twas caviary to the general. But it was (as I
received it, and others whose judgments in such
matters cried in the top of mine) an excellent play,
well digested in the scenes, set down with as much
modesty as cunning. I remember one said there
were no sallets in the lines to make the matter
savory, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict
the author of affection, but called it an honest
method, as wholesome as sweet and, by very much,
more handsome than fine. One speech in ’t I
chiefly loved. ’Twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and reference to the Trojan War. Agamemnon was the general of the Greeks in the Trojan war, and he spent many years in battle like the Dane
thereabout of it especially when he speaks of
Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at Priam’s daughter was Cassandra. Ophelia=Cassandra Priam was run through by a prince, as Polonius is run through with a sword by a prince.
this line—let me see, let me see:
The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast— Tiger; predator beast as opposed to a reasonable man
’tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus:
The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couchèd in th’ ominous horse, Why did Shakespeare choose this speech? Because it has to do with the Trojan War? Or because it parallels his own story…He will kill the man who killed his father. The Iliad is a story about a cuckolded king, so it might be because of Gertrude’s infidelity with Claudius or even Clytemnestra’s infidelity with Aegisthus.
Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared
With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot,
Now is he total gules, horridly tricked
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and a damnèd light
To their lord’s murder. Roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o’ersizèd with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus Pyrrhus is another name for Neoptolemus, Achilles’ son. It was said that he was covered with blood and that it colored his skin black as it congealed on his body.
Old grandsire Priam seeks.
So, proceed you.

POLONIUS.
’Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.

FIRST PLAYER  Anon he finds him
Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command. Unequal matched,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide; Pyrrhus, Achilles son, killed Priam by running him through with a sword, Polonius is killed by a prince too when he is run through with a sword. The rage of a son for his murdered father. Mirrors Laertes’ rage when he discovers Hamlet killed his father…Character twin.
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
Th’ unnervèd father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo, his sword,
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, seemed i’ th’ air to stick.
So as a painted tyrant Pyrrhus stood And, like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing.Like Hamlet
But as we often see against some storm
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,
Arousèd vengeance sets him new a-work,
And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall
On Mars’s armor, forged for proof eterne,
With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods again, fortune is a whore
In general synod take away her power,
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven
As low as to the fiends! Comparing his own royal family to that of Priam’s and Achilles’ and determining that his own family is lacking? He does not quickly avenge the death of his father, and his mother doesn’t truly love her husband like Hecuba loved Priam. Claudius (Clytemnestra) murdered a member of her own family as did Agamemnon. The ancient Greeks were not Christian and therefore were sort of immoral or rather not as seemingly constrained by morals as Hamlet’s family.  

POLONIUS.
This is too long.

HAMLET.
It shall to the barber’s, with your beard.—Prithee say on.
He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps.
Say on; come to Hecuba.

FIRST PLAYER.
But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen,—

HAMLET.
‘The mobled queen’?

POLONIUS.
That’s good! ‘Mobled queen’ is good.

FIRST PLAYER.
Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames
   With bisson rheum. A clout upon that head
   Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
   About her lank and all o’erteemed loins,
   A blanket, in th’alarm of fear caught up—
   Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d,
   ’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d.
   But if the gods themselves did see her then,
   When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
   In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,
   The instant burst of clamour that she made,—
   Unless things mortal move them not at all,—
   Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
   And passion in the gods. Unlike Gertrude Hecuba truly loved Priam. Gertrude is more like Clytemnestra, who jumped at the chance to take another man to her bed.

POLONIUS.
Look, where he has not turn’d his colour, and has tears in’s eyes. Pray you, no more.

HAMLET  ’Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest of
this soon.—Good my lord, will you see the players
well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used,
for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the
time. After your death you were better have a bad
epitaph than their ill report while you live.

POLONIUS.
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

HAMLET  God’s bodykins, man, much better! Use every
man after his desert and who shall ’scape
whipping? Use them after your own honor and
dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in
your bounty. Take them in. You should treat them better than they deserve. Admonitions in both Christianity and Greek mythology to treat strangers well and show them hospitality.

POLONIUS.
Come, sirs.

HAMLET.
Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow.

[Exeunt Polonius with all the Players but the First.]

Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play The Murder of Gonzago?

FIRST PLAYER.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?

FIRST PLAYER.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not. I’ll do it.

[Exit First Player.]

[To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern] My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Good my lord.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

HAMLET.
Ay, so, God b’ wi’ ye. Now I am alone.
O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wan’d;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting But it is not the actor’s true feelings; it’s only pretend.
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba?
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, The actor, can seemingly move other people as well as himself to great emotions whilst feeling nothing, whereas Hamlet, who feels the sting of his father’s death, cannot give voice to his grief, much less act upon it
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing. No, not for a king
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i’ th’ throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha! ’Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Oh vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion! Fie upon’t! Foh!
About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene, Prove the veracity of the ghost
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim’d their malefactions.
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks;
I’ll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil, and the devil hath power
T’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps Maybe the Ghost is a devil who assumes the shape of the Dane.
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits, Is the ghost evil and trying to lure me into doing evil by playing upon my sorrow? This is a way to find out.
Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds
More relative than this. The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

[Exit.]

It is very telling that S. chose to highlight the death of Priam at the hands of a grieving son, Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, and the end of the Trojan War. The end of the Trojan War was also the beginning of the Orestia. Priam’s daughter was a central figure in Agamemnon. She was SA by Agamemnon but curiously not by Apollo. The rape of Cassandra by both the lesser Ajax and Agamemnon highlights the fact that the two mortals did something a god would not do even though a god was more powerful.