mony demands in heated words: "What have you done with the dead body?" Hamlet in mock gravity replies: "I have compounded it with dust to which it is akin."

But, as Rosencrantz continues to question him with the same boldness and insistency, the Prince asserts his dignity and their unworthiness by demanding how the Royal Dane should reply to a sponge.

Rosencrantz feels the stinging force of the offensive appellation, and in the assertion of his honor asks in resentment, "Take you me for a sponge, my lord?"

"Ay, sir," answers Hamlet: "you are sponges that soak up information for the King," and against their rising anger, he insists all the more offensively upon the irritating epithet. The hateful comparison of the spies with a sponge was no doubt borrowed from Suetonius, who in his life of Vespasian narrates that, when reproached for appointing unworthy persons to high office, the emperor replied, such meu, like sponges, served him well: when they had drunk their full, they were then fittest to be pressed.

Again in galling sarcasm Hamlet compares the spies to food which the royal ape stowes away in the corner of his jaws; the first to be mouthed and the last to be swallowed. When Rosencrantz parries the opprobrious comparison by feigning not to understand him, Hamlet rejoices in their stupidity:

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that makes it. (Love's Labor Lost, V. ii.)

The last shaft which he hurls, barbed with irony, lies in the proverb that a knavish or cunning remark never enters a fool's head, and they indeed are fools, since they do not realize their base and contemptible position.

The spies, in anxiety to cut off further parley, again insist

on learning where the body of Polonius is, and inform Hamlet that he must go with them to the King. He, however, continues to maintain his role of madness and, ignoring their eager questions, designedly talks nonsense, speaks in riddles to tease and puzzle them, and, with the purpose of mystifying them, resorts to phrases of subtle meaning. Playing on the words body and king, he affirms that the King's body is with the King, but not the King's soul, that is, Claudius-a king of shreds and patches-is devoid of the characteristics of a king, or of true kingliness, because he has not the soul of a king. To further mystify and astound them, he asserts that the King is a thing.

The sentence is left unfinished, because he is interrupted by Guildenstern who in astonishment exclaims, "What, my lord, the King a thing!"

"Ay, sir," replies Hamlet, "a thing of nothing, a thing of no value; bring me to him." The thought was perhaps suggested by the words of Job: "Man cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed and fleeth as a shadow," or mayhap by those of the royal prophet: "Man is like to vanity: his days pass away like a shadow."

In departing, Hamlet invites the spies to play the game of hide and seek: the fox indeed is now hidden, let all set off to find him. He could have used no term more appropriate for the foxy politician; of all animals, the fox is reputed the most cunning, and of this trait in particular Polonius had plumed himself the most."

4 The appropriateness of the term again appears, when we consider that, as already noted, Polonius was a burlesque of the aged prime minister Burghley, who was known as the "Old Fox".

SCENE THIRD

A CHERUB THAT SEES THEM

The King enters, accompanied by armed attendants. The discovery that only by chance he had escaped the fatal blow which fell on Polonius, has filled him with fear and dismay, and caused him to surround himself more than ever with trusty body-guards. In soliloquy he gives expression to his distracting thoughts and feelings. Until yesterday he had imagined himself enjoying the fruits of his crime in full security; but the revelation that his secret murder was known to Hamlet, was a rude awakening to his danger, and impelled him to provide for his safety by taking at once aggressive measures against the probable avenger. Like Macbeth, he thinks, "to be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus." To let this madman go loose is most dangerous. Disease grown desperate demands a desperate remedy. But to avoid stirring up popular discontent, and perhaps inciting to riotous tumult, he decides to proceed smoothly and to disguise ❘ his purpose. If for his own personal safety, he must hurry his nephew out of Denmark, he must also satisfy the public that his action is not prompted by malice or caprice, but by the mature deliberation of his councilors. For this purpose he had hastily assembled his "wisest friends" for consultation. Having considered the accidental slaying of Polonius and its painful circumstances, the council decided, for prudential reasons, to suppress all the facts and to inter him as hastily and secretly as possible. Concerning Hamlet's fate, opinions were more divided. However much the King desired at heart to rid himself of his nephew, either by confinement in an asylum upon a judicial sentence of insanity, or

by summoning him before a court of justice to answer for the slaying of Polonius, he was equally averse to either course. The latter was objectionable on the part of the councilors, who, on the score of insanity, held Hamlet unamenable to the criminal law; and on the part of Claudius, who feared that a public and judicial process might lead Hamlet to divulge the secret crime. Besides, either process would arouse the opposi tion of the Queen and the masses; the Prince is the idol of Denmark and the most beloved of the 'distracted' or thoughtless multitude, which, ruled, not by judgment or reason, but by popular fancy and prejudice, weighs not the crime, but the punishment of the criminal. The only prudential course remaining is approved by every councilor: let the Prince be sent abroad for a time, until the fickle multitude shall have forgotten the deplorable death of the old minister. This expedient was instantly approved by the King, whose astute mind quickly grasped the opportunity to rid himself forever of - the sole obstacle to his complete happiness.

While Rosencrantz with troubled mien enters to complain of Hamlet's refusal to disclose the hidden corpse, Guildenstern remains in the vestibule, awaiting the pleasure of the King. As soon as Claudius hears of the failure of his agents, he is surprised and angered, and summons the culprit before him. As the Prince enters in the actual custody of military guards, he is haughtily and peremptorily ordered to give the desired information. Hamlet, however, assumes the same temper as his uncle, and only perplexes him by harassing replies. In fancy, he already sees the corpse of the chancellor, the food of worms in the corruption of the grave. But worms, he assumes, which feed on the corpse of so distinguished a political wire-puller, must needs partake of his qualities and become political. The idea suggests a pun, and, Shakespeare indulging his propensity, plays on the words "diet" and "worms," in

allusion to the Diet which Charles convoked at Worms in 1521. No two words were better known to audiences of the Poet's day; it was common knowledge that the emperor had summoned the contumacious monk to Worms to defend himself before the national Diet, or convocation of all the princes and rulers of the German empire.*

25

From punning, Hamlet turns to assure Claudius that he as well as all creatures shall, like Polonius, meet the same inevitable fate. A "fat king" like Claudius shall have the same end as a lean beggar; both shall be of service to the worms, though in a variable diet. By other personal remarks, Hamlet further irritates the King, who, returning to the insistent question, angrily demands, "where is Polonius?"

Hamlet's sole reply, though witty, is most cuttingly sarcastic, and indicates his contemptuous loathing for the royal criminal. Distinguishing between heaven and the lower regions, he counsels Claudius to look for Polonius in heaven, but he must send a messenger; since he himself can find no entrance there. If Polonius, however be in the other place, the King need send no messenger; for he himself will find glad welcome in hades.

When Claudius orders attendants to hasten away in search of the corpse, Hamlet in mock gravity assures him that neither need he worry nor they make haste, since Polonius will stay till they come. The attendants departed, the King turns to Hamlet, and, after expressing great grief at his bloody deed, begins to unfold his new project. Deeming himself secure in the secrecy of his purpose, he pleads that, in tender care for the Prince's special safety, he is obliged to despatch him instantly to England. His subterfuge is indeed most plausible,

25 At Worms, a city of the grand duchy of Hesse, many important German Diets were convoked through the centuries. The term "Diet" was ap plied to several political bodies of medieval and modern Europe.