CLAUDIUS enters with two or three of
his attendants.
CLAUDIUS
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,
5
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
10
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.
CLAUDIUS
I've sent men to find him and retrieve the body. How
dangerous to have this madman on the loose! But we can't
throw him in jail. The people love him, because they judge based on
appearance rather than reason. They'll pay attention to
the severity of the punishment, not the severity of the crime. No,
we must seem calm and fair-minded, and our sending him away must
seem like a carefully considered move. But a terminal disease
requires extreme treatment, or nothing at all.
Enter ROSENCRANTZ
ROSENCRANTZ
enters.
How now, what hath befall'n?
So what's happened?
ROSENCRANTZ
Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord,
We cannot get from him.
ROSENCRANTZ
We can't get him to tell us where he's put
the body.
CLAUDIUS
But where is he?
CLAUDIUS
But where is he?
ROSENCRANTZ
15
Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.
ROSENCRANTZ
Outside, my lord, under guard, waiting for your orders.
