Page 260 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

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? [270]

ROSENCRANTZ

To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

HAMLET

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks, 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, [275] come, deal justly with me.
Come, come. Nay, speak.

GUILDENSTERN
What should we say, my lord?

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
colour. I know the good King and Queen have sent [280] for you.

ROSENCRANTZ
To what end, my lord?

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
everpreserved love, and by what more dear a better [285] proposer can
charge you withal, be even and direct with me whether you were sent for or
no.

ROSENCRANTZ
[aside to Guildenstern] What say you?