Rosencrantz

Family: Denmark · Role: courtier · First appears: Hamlet · Act II, Scene II

Life events

• King and Queen summon Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to investigate Hamlet’s transformation.(Hamlet · Act II, Scene II)
  • With: Claudius Gertrude Guildenstern
  • “The need we have to use you did provoke Our hasty sending. Something have you heard Of Hamlet’s transformation; so I call it”
• Hamlet discovers that King and Queen sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to him.(Hamlet · Act II, Scene II)
  • With: Hamlet Guildenstern Claudius Gertrude
  • “GUILDENSTERN. My lord, we were sent for.”
• A company of players is ordered to perform before Hamlet.(Hamlet · Act III, Scene I)
  • With: Hamlet Guildenstern
  • “They are about the court, And, as I think, they have already order This night to play before him.”
• King orders Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to escort Hamlet to England under royal commission.(Hamlet · Act III, Scene III · 📍 England)
  • With: Claudius Guildenstern Hamlet
  • “Therefore prepare you, I your commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to England shall along with you.”
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are ordered to bring Polonius’s body into the chapel.(Hamlet · Act IV, Scene I · 📍 chapel)
  • With: Guildenstern Polonius
  • “Friends both, go join you with some further aid: Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him. Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body Into the chapel.”
• King commands Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to escort Hamlet aboard without delay.(Hamlet · Act IV, Scene III · 📍 England)
  • With: Claudius Guildenstern Hamlet
  • “Follow him at foot. Tempt him with speed aboard; Delay it not; I’ll have him hence tonight. Away, for everything is seal’d and done That else leans on th’affair. Pray you make haste.”
• Hamlet forges a commission ordering the bearers' execution instead of his own.(Hamlet · Act V, Scene II)
  • With: Hamlet Claudius Guildenstern
  • “I sat me down, Devis’d a new commission, wrote it fair: I once did hold it, as our statists do, A baseness to write fair, and labour’d much How to forget that learning; but, sir, now It did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou know The effect of what I wrote? HORATIO. Ay, good my lord. HAMLET. An earnest conjuration from the King, As England was his faithful tributary, As love between them like the palm might flourish, As peace should still her wheaten garland wear And stand a comma ’tween their amities, And many such-like ‘as’es of great charge, That on the view and know of these contents, Without debatement further, more or less, He should the bearers put to sudden death, Not shriving-time allow’d.”
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are reported dead in England.(Hamlet · Act V, Scene II)
  • With: Guildenstern
  • “The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, To tell him his commandment is fulfill’d, That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.”

Hamlet · Act II, Scene II

• friends with Hamlet “by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love”
• liege: Claudius “Might, by the sovereign power you have of us, Put your dread pleasures more into command Than to entreaty.”
• liege: Gertrude “Both your majesties Might, by the sovereign power you have of us, Put your dread pleasures more into command Than to entreaty.”

Hamlet · Act III, Scene I

• liege: Claudius “Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, And drive his purpose on to these delights. ROSENCRANTZ. We shall, my lord.”

Hamlet · Act III, Scene III

• liege: Claudius (Rosencrantz speaks of the king’s welfare as governing the lives of many.) “The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armour of the mind, To keep itself from ’noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest The lives of many.”

Hamlet · Act IV, Scene I

• friends with Guildenstern “Ho, Guildenstern! Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Friends both, go join you with some further aid:”

Hamlet · Act IV, Scene III

• liege: Claudius “KING. Bring him before us. ROSENCRANTZ. Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.”

Hamlet · Act V, Scene II

• with Hamlet (interaction) “So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.”

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Extracted from the original text of Shakespeare's Tragedies. Made with Rho MD.