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"changeling"
Language
Act 5,
Scene 2
Lines 29-55

An explanation of the word “changeling” in Act 5, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s Hamlet.

Hamlet

Being thus benetted round with villains,     
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play. I sat me down,    
Devised a new commission, wrote it fair.
I once did hold it, as our statists do, 
A baseness to write fair, and labored much
How to forget that learning. But, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service. Wilt thou know
Th' effects of what I wrote?

Horatio

                                                 Ay, good my lord.

Hamlet

An earnest conjuration from the king:
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them, like the palm, should flourish,
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear
(And stand a comma 'tween their amities 
And many such like “as’s” of great charge)    
That on the view and know of these contents,
Without debatement further more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving time allowed.

Horatio

                                                How was this sealed?

Hamlet

Why, even in that was heaven ordinate. 
I had my father's signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal.
Folded the writ up in the form of the other,
Subscribed it, gave't th' impression, placed it safely —
The changeling never known. Now the next day
Was our sea fight, and what to this was sequent
Thou knowest already.

Here, Shakespeare uses the word “changeling” to mean something that was switched with something else: Claudius’ real letter was exchanged with Hamlet’s forged one. The word’s original meaning is a child who is secretly put in the place of another, as those switched by fairies.