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All Site ContentHamletAct 2Scene 2
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“sort you with the rest”
Irony
Act 2,
Scene 2
Lines 264-269

An explanation of the irony in Hamlet’s speech to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act 2, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s Hamlet.

Both

We'll wait upon you.

Hamlet   

No such matter. I will not sort you with the rest of my 
servants, for (to speak to you like an honest man) I am
most dreadfully attended. – But in the beaten way of    
friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

Rosencrantz   

To visit you my lord, no other occasion.

Hamlet is being ironic when he says that he will not place Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on the same level with his servants. In reality, he would place them below his loyal servants, because he senses that they are acting in Claudius’s interest, not his.