You are here

All Site ContentHamletAct 2Scene 2
Back to the Play
"wait upon you"
Wordplay
Act 2,
Scene 2
Lines 264-269

A discussion of the phrase “wait upon you” 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.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern mean that they will wait and go in with Hamlet. But Hamlet, with a bit of wordplay, intentionally misinterprets them. He responds as if Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were being subservient, offering to wait on him as servants.