Hamlet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Hamlet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

This procrastination cannot be due to an instinctive and fastidious repugnance to killing, for Hamlet kills Polonius, and Laertes, and in the end the King himself; and he dispatches Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their doom with true alacrity. Whence then does it come? The answer will be found by examining all these cases. And before

them all, let us look at those two lines in 1.4.

unhand me gentlemen,

By heaven I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!

It is one of the key points in the drawing of his character. When it comes to doing what he is determined to do, he will not hesitate to kill even his closest friend, for Horatio is one of the gentlemen whom he threatens sword in hand. Hamlet's spontaneous tendencies are therefore essentially individualistic; and, the point must be emphasized, not even death of others, if need be, will stand in his way.

This the Hamlet whose behavior towards Rosencrantz and Guildenstern we are now to study. They were his friends, and we know from his mother that he had much talked of them and that

two men there are not living

To whom he more adheres.

The two young men receive from the King a commission which, whatever the King's secret intentions may be, is honorable. Hamlet, the King in fact tells them, is not what he was. The cause of the change "I cannot dream of."

Therefore, I beg you

so by your companies

To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather

So much as from occasion you may glean

Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus

That opened lies within our remedy.

Guildenstern's words show that the two young men understand their work in an irreproachable way:

Heaven make our presence and our practices

Pleasant and helpful to him.

They enter upon their new duties at a later stage in the same scene. Cordial and lighthearted, the meeting of the three young men leads to some fencing of wits on ambition; for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who know nothing about King Hamlet's murder, naturally assume that the trouble with Hamlet is frustrated ambition (and so in part it is): Hamlet, of course, parries, and as he tries to move off, his two companions, in strict obedience to their master, the King, say: "We'll wait upon you.