Polonius then suggests that he and Claudius hide themselves behind a needlework wall hanging so they can eavesdrop on the couple when Ophelia meets with Hamlet to return his love gifts. Claudius agrees, just as Hamlet enters reading. Polonius asks the King and Queen to leave them so that he may speak to Hamlet himself.
In the encounter that follows between Hamlet and Polonius, Hamlet warns Polonius to watch his daughter carefully and then toys with Polonius' limited wit. The exchange convinces Polonius that Hamlet is lovesick when, in actuality, Hamlet's responses have done little but ridicule Polonius. Polonius leaves, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter. Hamlet greets them as his "excellent good friends" and asks why they have come to his prison. They grouse at his choice of words, but he tells them, "Denmark's a prison." Rosencrantz wittily replies, "Then is the world one." Hamlet breaks through his friends' resistance, and the two finally admit that the King and Queen sent them to observe Hamlet and provide them with details of his behavior. Hamlet's melancholy then erupts in a blank verse complaint that he has lately "lost all my mirth." He laments that a foul and sickening fog now besmirches the heavens, which he once saw as a canopy "fretted with golden fire." Hamlet then indicts the very nature of mankind.
Rosencrantz seizes the opportunity to announce the arrival of the players, and Hamlet's mood shifts yet again. Ecstatic at the opportunity for diversion, Hamlet asks who the players are and why they are on the road. Rosencrantz answers that they are on the road because a company of child actors has usurped the London stage. Hamlet responds by saying that he welcomes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as he welcomes the actors and hopes he can be a worthy host. Polonius enters to announce the arrival of the players.
