them be well used; for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live. 

 POLONIUS. My lord, I will use them according to their desert. 

 HAMLET. God’s bodikin, man, better. Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in. 

 POLONIUS. Come, sirs. 

 HAMLET. Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow. 

 [Exeunt Polonius with all the Players but the First.] 

Polonius

Players

 Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play The Murder of Gonzago? 

 FIRST PLAYER. Ay, my lord. 

 HAMLET. We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not? 

 FIRST PLAYER. Ay, my lord. 

 HAMLET. Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not. 

 [Exit First Player.] 

First Player

 [To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern] My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore. 

 ROSENCRANTZ. Good my lord. 

 [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.] 

Rosencrantz

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