Counting repetitions (like this one), the word “alas” appears 234 times in Shakespeare’s works.

The synonym “alack” appears only 82 times.

Throughout this scene, Claudius’s requests for information serve as unwitting “setup” lines for Hamlet’s mockery. As Claudius’s impatience grows, the tension steadily escalates:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OIWaW0_IzA

In a sort of contemptuous power play, Hamlet says nothing about the body’s location and orders that they bring him to the king, as if it was his idea all along. He will not be ordered around by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (and by extension, Claudius).

Hamlet plays on two related senses of “keep counsel”–“take advice” and “keep a secret.” He means that he will keep his secret (the location of Polonius’s body) rather than following Rosencrantz’s advice.

replication: reply. Hamlet means that it’s beneath his dignity as a prince to answer the demands of a sycophantic servant. (See note on “sponge” below.)

in his 1765 commentary, Samuel Johnson glosses “That, lapsed…lets go by” as:

That, having suffered time to slip, and passion to cool, lets go, &c.

This time Hamlet guesses the Ghost’s purpose before the Ghost speaks. He addresses his dead father with the guilt of a disobedient or lazy son.

Hamlet in effect urges the kind of “purging of [the] soul” he saw Claudius making–or assumed Claudius was making–in the previous scene.

Having heard Claudius’s confession, we know that he has not fully repented–he has no intention of giving up the benefits of his crime.