Here, Claudius kneels and prays to God. Though he has just recognized his damnation and "rank offence," Claudius does not pray for forgiveness but rather prays that he will get away with his crime. He does not see Hamlet, who enters and decides not to kill him. With these lines Claudius recognizes that prayers without thought, or words without repentance, will not reach God or sway his judgement. They are invalid.

Just as Hamlet had hoped, the play did expose the conscience of the King. Claudius confesses to his deed and uses this metaphor to explain the stain that his deed has placed upon his kingship. The murder was so evil, so vile, that it has created a rank oder that wafts up to heaven where God himself can smell it. In imagining the smell reaching heaven, Claudius recognizes that he will be punished in the afterlife. However, he refuses to repent because it would mean giving up his earthly spoils. This soliloquy represents the moment at which Claudius recognizes what he has done and chooses his sin over repentance.

A "physic" refers not to a physician but to a medicine. The "medicine" Hamlet speaks of is Claudius' continued existence, which prolongs his mother's sickness (incestuousness in marrying her brother-in-law). In other words, Hamlet is giving his mother her medicine, and he isn't going to feel bad about it. However, if he kills Claudius while he is praying, Hamlet worries that Claudius will go to heaven. So, rather than kill him now, Hamlet decides to wait for a time when Claudius has not had time to repent and is less "fit and seasoned" for a passage to heaven.

A reference to Ezekial 16:49: "Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness." Hamlet thinks Claudius struck King Hamlet down out of pride and a kind of arrogance born out of privilege and well-being. Only someone in as secure a position as Claudius was would think of murdering his own brother and marrying his sister-in-law.

In one sense, this line means Claudius should be held accountable for his crimes, because as a villain he hasn't yet been repaid in kind for his sins. In another sense, Hamlet has been hired by the Ghost to avenge his death, and thus this revenge isn't so much for Hamlet as it is for his father. Thus, Hamlet becomes a mercenary, hired to do a job and paid a salary for his services (in the form of becoming king).

Recall that in Act III, Scene II, Hamlet likened himself to an instrument with strings and notes that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were incapable of playing. Shakespeare repeats the image to show that Claudius can be played like an instrument, unlike Hamlet, and that he already has been, in responding so dramatically to the play within the play.

In Heaven, we can't shuffle or try to hide our crimes, but are instead required to give evidence or testify against ourselves before God. To pretend that he's been absolved would give Claudius a false sense of security and make him think that he'd gotten away with his crime.

"Gilded" meaning golden. Claudius speaks both generally (in saying that the world is corrupt and people often get away with their crimes) and personally (referring to his own hand as gilded because now he's the king and presumably wears rings and carries a golden scepter). It makes Claudius' sins seem at once common and singularly offensive.

Notice that Claudius wants to claim the benefits of prayer (absolving one sin and stopping someone before they commit another) without actually praying. He's trying to rationalize his behavior to soothe his conscience, telling himself that what's done is done, but the fact that he feels the need to do this proves that his guilt will not be so easily assuaged.

Claudius says he can't pray because he feels guilty, and he can't fully feel guilty because he knows he wants to pray and absolve his sins (proving that he still has some good in him). However, by neglecting both his guilt and his desire to pray, he places himself in an even worse position where his failure to pray is as damning as his guilt.

Claudius' speech mirrors that of Lady Macbeth in Act V, Scene I of Macbeth, in which she attempts to wash her hands clean of King Duncan's blood but feels she can't because she's guilty. Both lines speak to the extreme guilt caused by committing a murder (of a king in particular).

Polonius believes that mothers are naturally partial to or protective of their children and more likely to overlook certain things that Polonius himself might not. Therefore, he's going to spy on Gertrude's conversation with Hamlet, just in case he says something to her that she doesn't worry about because she's his mother.

"Fetters" are chains or shackles meant to hold or imprison someone. It's unclear whether "this fear" refers to Hamlet or his madness, which can in itself be figured as a "fear" or a "fright" in the sense of it being a kind of monstrous enemy. More likely, Claudius think of the fear as Hamlet, who Claudius thinks has been allowed to walk too freely.

In other words, when a king sighs, the general population sighs, too. Thus, Hamlet, who isn't a threat to the general public, becomes an enemy of the state because of his personal problem with Claudius. Rosencrantz may only be saying this to stay in Claudius' good graces, or he may still be angry with Hamlet for treating him so unkindly in the last scene.

A "mortise" is the architectural term for a hole that's created to accept a "tenon," or part that joins two pieces of a structure together. In this case, the mortises are the holes into which the spokes of the wheel are fit, and there are thousands of them to represent the number of citizens over whom the crown presides.

"Weal" being short for "wealth." Rosencrantz essentially says that, as king, Claudius has to act against Hamlet in order to protect himself and the country, and that his ability to govern depends on his treating Hamlet's madness like an annoyance that keeps him from doing his job (regardless of what his real intentions are).

Rosencrantz inverts a sentiment expressed by Hamlet in his "To be, or not to be?" soliloquy in Act III, Scene I: that it's nobler in the mind to suffer in silence. Rosencrantz instead says that we shouldn't suffer and that we're bound to rid ourselves of any annoyances ("noyance"), such as Hamlet and his apparent madness.

In Hamlet's time, kings were considered to have a divine right to rule and weren't subject to the laws of the land, instead drawing their authority directly from God. Thus, if Claudius wants to spy on Hamlet, there's nothing anyone can do to stop him, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are required to tell him that he's being a good king.

Claudius has decided to commission Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as ambassadors to England, and Hamlet will accompany them as the royal attache on their diplomatic mission. Of course, Claudius would rather kill Hamlet and be done with it, but on the surface he must appear to be handling the problem of Hamlet's "madness" in a way befitting both a king and a prince.

Claudius refers to the first biblical curse on Cain for the murder of his brother Abel, of whom Cain was jealous because God favored Abel's offerings better. For his crime, Cain was compelled to live the rest of his life as a "fugitive and a vagabond." Genesis 4:10-12