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HAMLET With drink, sir?
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HAMLET What, an upset stomach from too much booze?
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GUILDENSTERN No, my lord, with choler.
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GUILDENSTERN No, sir, he’s angry.
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HAMLET Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this
to the doctor. For, for me to put him to his purgation would
perhaps plunge him into far more choler.
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HAMLET You should be smart enough to tell this to a doctor, not me, since
if I treated him, he’d just get angrier.
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GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and start
not so wildly from my affair.
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GUILDENSTERN My lord, please try to stick to the subject at hand.
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HAMLET I am tame, sir. Pronounce.
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HAMLET I’ll be good, sir. Go ahead.
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GUILDENSTERN The queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit,
hath sent me to you.
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GUILDENSTERN The queen your mother is upset, and sent me to see you.
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HAMLET You are welcome.
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HAMLET It’s lovely to see you.
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GUILDENSTERN Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If
it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do
your mother’s commandment. If not, your pardon and my
return shall be the end of my business.
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GUILDENSTERN No, my lord, your polite words are not to the point. If you could
please stop fooling around, I’ll tell you what your
mother wants. If not, I’ll leave you alone and
that’ll be the end of my business.
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HAMLET Sir, I cannot.
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HAMLET Sir, I can’t.
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GUILDENSTERN What, my lord?
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GUILDENSTERN Can’t what, my lord?
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HAMLET Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s diseased. But,
sir,
such answer as I can make, you shall command. Or, rather,
as you say, my mother. Therefore no more but to the matter.
My mother, you say—
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HAMLET Stop fooling around. My mind is confused. But I’ll do
my best to give you a straight answer, as you wish—or
rather, as my mother wishes. Okay, to the point. My mother, you say
…?
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ROSENCRANTZ Then thus she says: your behavior hath struck her into
amazement and admiration.
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ROSENCRANTZ She says that your behavior has astonished her.
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