فصل 14

Enter King, and two or three.

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 loved of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes , And where ‘tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weighed, But never the offense. To bear all smooth and even , This sudden sending him away must seem Deliberate pause . Diseases desperate grown By desperate appliance are relieved, Or not at all.

Enter Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] and all the rest.

How now, what hath befall’n?

ROSENCRANTZ

Where the dead body is bestowed, 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 [calling] Ho! Bring in the lord.

They enter [with Hamlet].

KING Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

HAMLET At supper.

KING At supper? Where?

HAMLET Not where he eats, but where ‘a 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!

HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

KING What dost thou mean by this?

HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

KING Where is Polonius?

HAMLET In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’th’other place yourself.

But if indeed you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

KING [to some attendants] Go seek him there.

HAMLET ‘A will stay till you come.

[Exeunt attendants.] KING

Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety— Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve For that which thou hast done—must send thee hence With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.

The bark is ready, and the wind at help, Th’associates tend, and everything is bent For England.

HAMLET For England!

KING Ay, Hamlet.

HAMLET Good.

KING

So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.

HAMLET I see a cherub that sees them. But come, for England! Farewell, dear mother.

KING Thy loving father, Hamlet.

HAMLET My mother. Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh, and so, my mother.

Come, for England!

Exit.

KING

Follow him at foot ; tempt him with speed aboard.

Delay it not. I’ll have him hence tonight.

Away! For everything is sealed and done That else leans on th’affair. Pray you, make haste.

[Exeunt all but the King.] And, England, if my love thou hold’st at aught — As my great power thereof may give thee sense , Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red After the Danish sword, and thy free awe Pays homage to us—thou mayst not coldly set Our sovereign process, which imports at full , By letters congruing to that effect, The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England, For like the hectic in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me. Till I know ‘tis done, Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun .