King Claudius, alarmed at the death of Polonius and his own guilty state, conspires with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to take Hamlet to England and get rid of him, saying:
"Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed abroad,
Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night;
Away! for everything is sealed and done
That else leans on the affair; pray you, make haste!"
Hamlet before retiring thus bemoans his slowness in wreaking a just vengeance upon his murderer uncle:
"How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To rot in us unused.
Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father killed, a mother stained,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That for a fantasy and trick of fame
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody or nothing worth!"
The beautiful Ophelia becomes insane after her father's death, and wanders about the castle singing disjointed love songs and uttering musings.
Queen Gertrude says:
"How now, Ophelia?"
She sings:
"How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff
And his sandal shoon."
The king asks: