What does Hamlet think of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?

Answer 1

Hamlet thinks that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are foolish little pawns because they do anything the King tells them to because they just want to be honored. Furthermore, he thinks they are just plain foolish because he tricks them and manipulates them multiple times to perfectly stage his plan.

Answer 2

Not very well. He browbeats them to get them to admit that they are spying on him, feeds them a lot of misleading information, violently insults them (he calls Guildenstern a sponge), then arranges for them to be killed without even the benefit of confession. Even Horatio is shocked at how nasty Hamlet is to them.

Answer 3

Hamlet suspects that Rosencrants and Guildenstern have not met with him to give him company and be good friends, but rather to find out the cause of Hamlet's madness. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern prove to be more loyal to King Claudius than to their supposed friend Hamlet.

Answer 4

At first, his "excellent good friends!" Once he's realized that they've been sent to spy on him, he compares them to "adders fang'd" (venomous snakes). In the course of banter with them, he also memorably makes a dirty joke about them living in "the secret parts of fortune."

Answer 5

His lines are ambiguous, but judging from Hamlet's defensive responses, it seems like Horatio disapproves, or is at least taken aback.

Horatio probably knew Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from school, and may have some affection toward them. And it seems anyone would be disturbed by Hamlet's decision: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern don't seem to have known they were taking Hamlet to his death, yet Hamlet not only dooms them to die, but asks that they not be given a chance to confess first, meaning he wants them to become tortured ghosts like his father. Seems like a disproportionate response.

Answer 6

He is absolutely contemptuous of them and sees nothing wrong with doing to them as Claudius did to his father.

Answer 7

"My excellent good friends!" He's delighted to see them. It takes a while before he begins to suspect them.