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No Fear Translations of Shakespeare’s plays (along with audio!) and other classic works
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A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
Hamlet delivers this rebuke to Rosencrantz after Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come to him in Act 4, Scene 2 at Claudius’s request to ask him to turn over the body of the slain Polonius. Hamlet responds to this request by saying they are but sponges in the service of the king, and that it is beneath him to engage with mere sponges. When Rosencrantz responds that he doesn’t understand what Hamlet is saying, Hamlet responds with this line—essentially saying that Rosencrantz cannot understand him because clever words have no meaning to fools.
The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.
When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ask Hamlet where Polonius’s dead body is in Act 4, Scene 2, he responds with clever wordplay that he (and only he) would be aware of, but which would sound like gibberish to the pair of former friends that he is talking to. This is discussed further in Quotes by Theme: Madness versus Cunning (the third quote).
This is just one example of numerous instances in the play where Hamlet makes a verbal quip that only he and the audience will comprehend as a way of showing his contempt for someone who he feels has wronged him. The most frequent targets of Hamlet’s quips are Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Polonius. Soon, his former school friends will share Polonius’s fate when they die because of having conspired against Hamlet.
