This is thought to be a reference to a game like hide and seek.
If this is the case, this is the second reference to a game that Hamlet has made.

RULES for the Fox Hunt Game (as imagined by a theatre maker hundreds of years after the fact)

The group gathers together in a tight cluster. There is a moment of expectancy while everyone waits to find out who will be the fox and who the hounds. The person who feels called to will tag someone on the elbow and shout, “Hide fox, and all after.” And whomever is tagged is the fox and s/he must run quickly and hide. The hounds (everyone remaining) must count to 30 together before pursuing the fox in whichever direction s/he rain. The one to find the fox then chooses the next fox.
And so it goes until all are tired of the game.

There are times when I wish I were religious. This is one of those times. I would like to somehow assure my dying grandmother that she’s on her way to heaven…that I might be able to bring her to Him, as it were.

In times like this, you really can see how religion got invented. Yes, of course, you’re not DYING so much as GOING on to the better place! You’re on your way to reunite with all your loved ones. You’re on your way to see your God. It’s all good news.
But fundamentally, I don’t believe any of this – so it’s hard to say reassuring things like it, even if SHE thinks they’re so.
Maybe we should hire a religious bedside sitter to bring her to Him.

One of the notes on this line references a “well-known” association of Shakespeare’s time for the word “Nothing,” It says it was a well-known euphemism for the vagina. Now. I’m not gonna quibble with an editor – but I would like some evidence for this “well-known” idea. I feel like I can get pretty deep into the weeds with scholarship –particularly bawdy scholarship – but this “well-known” euphemism is not known to me. An “O” I will accept and I can see how an “O” could lead quite neatly to nothing. O looking like ZERO, which equals nothing. Okay.
But maybe because I am possessed of an “O” or a “case” or a “pillicock –hill” or a “pie”, I am not at all keen on the “nothing” euphemism. Nothing? Really?

There are scholarly assessments of what Hamlet might be about to say here. I’d suggest that they probably know what they’re talking about – but as the words are not ACTUALLY here, they COULD be anything we want. I want them to be something like:
The King is a thing
That goes ring a ding ding
And sometimes kaching
When the meter’s running.

But I know it is definitely NOT that.
The thing is, though, imagining it to be so would create a very specific way to say the only part that is actually heard. It’s a moment for some possible comedy.

I remember this being explained to me as being a reference to the political body…and it was never clear to me if both bodies were the political body or just one. But now, I’ve gone ahead and looked this up and it sounds like this is a “well known saying” of the time. Maybe it’s a little like saying, “You have a right to remain silent” in our culture – a recognizable official thing to say. It highlights Hamlet the clown but it’s also Hamlet the verbal wit. He’ll draw on anything to make his point.

The thing about this is that the speech, asleep, will, eventually, one would imagine, awake.
I bet this particular knavish speech wakes right up right about the time that Rosencrantz realizes what was in that letter from the king.

My partner used to make fun of me for being such a Charles Dickens fan. He thought Dickens was all picturesque urchins and holiday sentimentality. Then I convinced him to read Bleak House and he discovered how much there was to love. He sent me hilarious up to the minute reactions to the book via text. His exclamations about Lady Deadlock were some of the best texts I’ve ever received.
We’ve had a kind of Dickens book club ever since. We don’t read them at the same time- but between us, we are both reading a Dickens novel and each of us reading one that the other has read before. I am reading Oliver Twist. He is reading Our Mutual Friend. And we are enjoying one another’s mutual journey through our respective books. We don’t talk much about politics or current events. We don’t talk about other people. We talk about Fagin and Riderhood, Mr. Bumble and Mr. Venus.

Now my partner rails at a culture that led him to believe that Dickens was a twee author reserved for carolers and ceramic villages.

This is actually a bit of good advice for Rosencrantz, if only he could heed it. I suspect that Hamlet has a lot of insight into how Claudius operates. He’s known him his whole life and he has likely seen this very pattern in action before. He knows what happens to people who suck up to Claudius.

And Rosencrantz has bet on the wrong horse here. He’s chosen to ally with Claudius. This makes me wonder what would have happened if Rosencrantz had chosen Hamlet. What if he’d actually owned up to the situation and said, “Look Hamlet, your mom and uncle brought us here. But we’re your friends and maybe we can help. I’ll tell the king whatever you think will keep him off your back. And if there’s spying you need done on them, I will do it for you. You have reason to be suspicious of us, of course. But I want you to know that I’m on your side and want to help you do whatever it is you need to do.” I mean – what would have happened? Tragedy averted?
I mean. Of course, it wouldn’t be a good play if that had happened but it feels like an interesting alterna-verse for these characters.

Hamlet seems to know an awful lot about apes. Why? Are apes native to Denmark? I should think not. Nor to England either.
Maybe there’s a Danish Royal Zoo? Or a touring wild animal show? I am very curious about where this knowledge of apes comes from.
Or is it not knowledge? Just imagined ape behavior? This is such a specific image. It just feels like something Hamlet (or Shakespeare) witnessed.

The END being the operative in this sentence.
I mean. The best service is very likely one’s death.
Is there any better service one could provide than one’s death?
Best Service in the End has a military ring.
The military pitches itself as serving and that the ultimate sacrifice would be the best service of all. See also my post on the West Point cadets.