Enter CLAUDIUS,
GERTRUDE, POLONIUS,
OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and
GUILDENSTERN
CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE,
POLONIUS, OPHELIA,
ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
enter.
CLAUDIUS
And can you by no drift of conference
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
CLAUDIUS
And you can't put your heads together and figure out
why he's acting so dazed and confused, ruining his peace
and quiet with such dangerous displays of lunacy?
ROSENCRANTZ
5
He does confess he feels himself distracted.
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
ROSENCRANTZ
He admits he feels confused, but refuses to say why.
GUILDENSTERN
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded.
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
10
Of his true state.
GUILDENSTERN
And he's not exactly eager to be interrogated.
He's very sly and dances around our questions when we try
to get him to talk about how he feels.
GERTRUDE
Did he receive you well?
GERTRUDE
Did he treat you well when you saw him?
ROSENCRANTZ
Most like a gentleman.
ROSENCRANTZ
Yes, in a very gentlemanly way.
GUILDENSTERN
But with much forcing of his disposition.
GUILDENSTERN
But it seemed like he had to force himself to be nice to
us.
ROSENCRANTZ
Niggard of question, but of our demands
Most free in his reply.
ROSENCRANTZ
He didn't ask questions, but answered ours at
length.
GERTRUDE
Did you assay him?
15
To any pastime?
GERTRUDE
Did you try tempting him with some entertainment?
ROSENCRANTZ
Madam, it so fell out, that certain players
We o'erraught on the way. Of these we told him,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
ROSENCRANTZ
Madam, some actors happened to cross our paths on the way here. We
told Hamlet about them, and that seemed to do him good.
