William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

ACT II. 2. Scene II. A room in the Castle. (continued)

Ham.
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,
Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

Ros.
As the indifferent children of the earth.

Guil.
Happy in that we are not over-happy;
On fortune's cap we are not the very button.

Ham.
Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros.
Neither, my lord.

Ham.
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her
favours?

Guil.
Faith, her privates we.

Ham.
In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a
strumpet. What's the news?

Ros.
None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.

Ham.
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?

Guil.
Prison, my lord!

Ham.
Denmark's a prison.

Ros.
Then is the world one.

Ham.
A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and
dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.

Ros.
We think not so, my lord.

Ham.
Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good
or bad but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

Ros.
Why, then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your
mind.

Ham.
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a
king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.