Hamlet

HAMLET So I do still, by these pickers and stealers317.

ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper?

You do freely bar the door of your own liberty, if you deny319

your griefs to your friend.

HAMLET Sir, I lack advancement.

ROSENCRANTZ How can that be, when you have the voice of the

king himself for your succession in Denmark?

HAMLET Ay, but 'While the grass grows'324 -- the proverb is

something musty.

Enter one with a recorder

O, the recorder! Let me see.

Takes the recorder

to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

To withdraw327 with you: why do you go

about to recover the wind of me, as if328

you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too330

unmannerly.

HAMLET I do not well understand that. Will you play upon

this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages339 with

your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth and it

will discourse most excellent music. Look you, these are the

stops.

GUILDENSTERN But these cannot I command to any utterance of