Original Text
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Modern Text
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ROSENCRANTZ
God save you, sir!
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ROSENCRANTZ
Thank you, sir.
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Exit POLONIUS
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POLONIUS exits.
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GUILDENSTERN
My honored lord!
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GUILDENSTERN
My lord!
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ROSENCRANTZ
My most dear lord!
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ROSENCRANTZ
My dear sir!
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HAMLET
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern?
215Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do you both?
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HAMLET
Ah, my good old friends! How are you, Guildenstern?
And Rosencrantz! Boys, how are you both doing?
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ROSENCRANTZ
As the indifferent children of the earth.
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ROSENCRANTZ
Oh, as well as anybody.
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GUILDENSTERN
Happy, in that we are not overhappy.
On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.
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GUILDENSTERN
Happy that we’re not too happy, lucky in being not too
lucky. We’re not exactly at the top of our luck.
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HAMLET
Nor the soles of her shoes?
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HAMLET
But you’re not down and out, either, are you?
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ROSENCRANTZ
220Neither, my lord.
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ROSENCRANTZ
No, we’re just somewhere in the middle, my lord.
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HAMLET
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favors?
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HAMLET
So you’re around Lady Luck’s waist?
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GUILDENSTERN
Faith, her privates we.
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GUILDENSTERN
Yes, we’re the privates in her army.
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HAMLET
In the secret parts of Fortune? Oh, most true. She is a strumpet. What news?
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HAMLET
Ha, ha, so you’ve gotten into her private parts? Of
course—Lady Luck is such a slut. Anyway,
what’s up?
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ROSENCRANTZ
None, my lord, but that the world’s grown
honest.
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ROSENCRANTZ
Not much, my lord. Just that the world’s become
honest.
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HAMLET
Then is doomsday near. But your news is not true. Let me
question more in particular. What have you, my good
friends, deserved at the hands of fortune that she sends you
to prison hither?
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HAMLET
In that case, the end of the world is approaching. But
you’re wrong. Let me ask you a particular question. What
crimes have you committed to be sent here to this prison?
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