From the end of Act 3, scene ii
ROSENCRANTZ
Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you
do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if
you deny your griefs to your friend.
HAMLET
Sir, I lack advancement.
ROSENCRANTZ
How can that be, when you have the voice of the king
himself for your succession in Denmark?
HAMLET
Ay, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb*
is something musty.
Re-enter Players with recorders
O, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with
you:--why do you go about to recover** the wind of me,
as if you would drive me into a toil?
GUILDENSTERN
O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
unmannerly.
HAMLET
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon
this pipe?
GUILDENSTERN
My lord, I cannot.
HAMLET
I pray you.
GUILDENSTERN
Believe me, I cannot.
HAMLET
I do beseech you.
GUILDENSTERN
I know no touch of it, my lord.
HAMLET
'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with
your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
Look you, these are the stops.
GUILDENSTERN
But these cannot I command to any utterance of
harmony; I have not the skill.
HAMLET
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know
my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to
the top of my compass: and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot
you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am
easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what
instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you
cannot play upon me.
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*“The remainder of this old proverb is preserved in Whetstone’s Promos and Cassandra, 1578: ‘Whylst grass doth growe, oft sterves the seely steede.’
Hamlet means to intimate, that whilst he is waiting for the succession
to the throne of Denmark, he may himself be taken off by death.”
** recouer the wind] Hudson (ed. 1856): “‘To recover the wind
of me’ is a term borrowed from hunting, and means, to take advantage of
the animal pursued, by getting to the windward of it, that it may not
scent its pursuers. ‘Observe how the wind is, that you may set the net
so as the hare and wind may come together; if the wind be sideways it
may do well enough, but never if it blow over the net into the hare’s
face, for he will scent both it and you at a distance.’—Gentleman’s Recreation.” . . . .
In other words, "Why do you go about, in such an underhand manner, to sift my thoughts,
or lay stratagems to drive me into a toil? The idea is taken from a
trap to catch wild beasts.”