The Tragedy of LEGO Hamlet, Prince of Denmark – Act 2, Scene 2 – Part One
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSACRANTZ, GUILDASTERN
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of you;
QUEEN GERTRUDE
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king’s remembrance.
Exeunt ROSACRANTZ, and GUILDASTERN
Enter POLONIUS
LORD POLONIUS
Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege,
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
Both to my God and to my gracious king:
And I do think, or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath used to do, that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.
KING CLAUDIUS
O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.
KING CLAUDIUS
But how hath she
Received his love?
LORD POLONIUS
What do you think of me?
KING CLAUDIUS
As of a man faithful and honourable.
LORD POLONIUS
I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing–
As I perceived it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me–what might you,
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play’d the desk or table-book,
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or look’d upon this love with idle sight;
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;
This must not be:’ and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
And he, repulsed–a short tale to make–
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we mourn for.
KING CLAUDIUS
Do you think ’tis this?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
It may be, very likely.
LORD POLONIUS
Hath there been such a time–I’d fain know that–
That I have positively said ‘Tis so,’
When it proved otherwise?
KING CLAUDIUS
Not that I know.
LORD POLONIUS
[Pointing to his head and shoulder]
Take this from this, if this be otherwise:
LORD POLONIUS
At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him:
Be you and I behind an arras then;
Mark the encounter: if he love her not
And be not from his reason fall’n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.
KING CLAUDIUS
We will try it.
Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, and QUEEN GERTRUDE