Page 258 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Good lads, how doyou both? [225]

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? [230]

ROSENCRANTZ
Neither, my lord.

HAMLET
Then you live about her waist, or in themiddle of her favours?

GUILDENSTERN
Faith, her privates we.

HAMLET
In the secret parts of Fortune? O most true, [235] she is a strumpet. What
news?

ROSENCRANTZ
None, my lord, but 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
[240] that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN
Prison, my lord?

HAMLET