...talk. When the feckless and unskilled Guildenstern cannot oblige, Hamlet touchily retorts that yet you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out...you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of the compass. . . . 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument...

...have not the skill. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out...lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I...

...him. He accuses the younger men of trying to play upon him as on a recorder: You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out...lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 3.2.355-60 As Polonius...

...— and yet remains irreducible to other characters' explanations, or those of a thousand critics: 'You would seem to know my stops, you would pluck...would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass.'3 This amplitude remains whether Hamlet is seen as a 'person' or a literary construct, since...