Act 4, Scene 2

Another room in the Castle.

[Enter Hamlet.]
Hamlet
2575 Safely stowed.
[Within.]
Ros. and Guil
2576 Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
Hamlet
2577 What noise? who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.
[Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]
Rosencrantz
2578 What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
Hamlet
2579 Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.
Rosencrantz
2580 Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence,
2581 And bear it to the chapel.
Hamlet
2582 Do not believe it.
Rosencrantz
2583 Believe what?
Hamlet
2584 That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be
2585 demanded of a sponge!—what replication should be made by the son
2586 of a king?
Rosencrantz
2587 Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
Hamlet
2588 Ay, sir; that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards,
2589 his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in
2590 the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw;
2591 first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have
2592 gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry
2593 again.
Rosencrantz
2594 I understand you not, my lord.
Hamlet
2595 I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
Rosencrantz
2596 My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to
2597 the king.
Hamlet
2598 The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body.
2599 The king is a thing,—
Guildenstern
2600 A thing, my lord!
Hamlet
2601 Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2579biblical allusion
“Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin”
Hamlet answers that he has mixed Polonius's body with dust — because human bodies are made of dust and return to it. The phrase echoes the burial sentence from Genesis: 'because thou art dust, and to dust shalt thou return.' The flippant tone makes the scriptural echo darkly comic.
TLN 2584wordplay
“That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own”
Counsel means both 'secret' and 'advice.' Hamlet says he cannot keep Rosencrantz's secret while failing to keep his own — a riddling non-answer that sidesteps the question about the body while implying that Rosencrantz's real 'secret' (that he is a spy) is already known to Hamlet.
TLN 2584archaic vocab
“to be demanded of a sponge”
Demanded of means 'questioned by' (not modern 'demanded from'). Hamlet is outraged that a prince must answer to an underling — and the word 'sponge' is about to be unpacked as his metaphor for what Rosencrantz actually is.
TLN 2588cultural context
“soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards, his authorities”
Countenance means royal favor — the visible approval of the monarch's face. Hamlet's metaphor is fully explained in his own speech: Rosencrantz absorbs the king's favors like a sponge until the king needs what he has collected, then squeezes him dry and discards him. The image mocks the entire system of court patronage, in which minor officials existed entirely at the monarch's pleasure.
TLN 2595rhetorical device
“a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear”
A maxim (sententia): clever, cutting words simply go unheard by a fool. Hamlet is saying that Rosencrantz's failure to understand him is not Hamlet's problem — the insult only lands if you are smart enough to grasp it. It also lets Hamlet publicly brand Rosencrantz a fool.
TLN 2599archaic vocab
“The king is a thing”
Thing in Elizabethan English could mean a creature or entity of no fixed or recognized status — i.e., a nothing. Hamlet completes the thought: 'Of nothing' (TLN 2601). Reducing a king to a 'thing of nothing' is a direct challenge to royal authority. The phrase also echoes Psalm 144:4 and Lear-like themes of monarchs stripped to bare existence.
TLN 2601cultural context
“Hide fox, and all after”
The cry used to start a children's hide-and-seek game in Elizabethan England — the 'fox' hides, the others chase. Hamlet shouts it and runs off, literally turning the hunt for the body into a children's game and casting himself as the fox that cannot be caught. It underscores his feigned madness and mocks his pursuers as children.