The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

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The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, and is one of his most well-known and oft-quoted plays. It was uncertain exactly when it was written, but scholars tend to place its composition between 1600 and the summer of 1602.

1 Act I
2 Act II
3 Act III
4 Act IV
5 Act V
6 External links

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Act I

Frailty, thy name is woman! (Hamlet, I.ii)
- Paraphrased: Women are the definition of weak.

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak'd meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. (Hamlet, I.ii)
- an example of bitter sarcasm; complimenting Hamlet's uncle and his mother for their thriftiness, while also pointing out that the funeral was barely over, before the wedding began.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads. (Ophelia, I.iii)
- a criticism of the hypocrisy of some religious teachers.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend. And this above all: to thine ownself be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. (Polonius, I.iii)
- This is only a selection of Polonius's advice, for concerns of length. Supposedly, it contains the collected wisdom of Polonius' day, with the addition of the radical "to thine own self be true". But, did Shakespeare and Hamlet approve of this advice? If so, then why did Hamlet remark, after mistakenly killing Polonius, that he was always "an errant knave"?

It is a custom more honour'd in the breach than the observance. (Hamlet, I.iv)
- meaning that it would be more honorable to not observe this particular custom (drinking draughts after every cannon volley).

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. (Marcellus, I.iv)
- another pun, talking about the state of things in general, and the political state in particular.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet, I.v)
- Paraphrased: There are things that science and rationality cannot explain (Horatio's philosophy being a scholarly one). Horatio was apparently the embodiment of the Roman school of philosophy of the stoics.

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Act II

More matter with less art. (Gertrude, II.ii)

Lord Polonius. Do you know me, my lord?
Hamlet. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger
Lord Polonius. Not I, my lord.
Hamlet. Then I would you were so honest a man.
Lord Polonius. Honest, my lord!
Hamlet. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
Lord Polonius. That's very true, my lord.
Hamlet. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion,--Have you a daughter?
Lord Polonius. I have, my lord.
Hamlet. Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to 't.
Lord Polonius. Aside How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this.
- Here Shakespeare uses the term fishmonger to imply that Polonius is acting like a pimp over his daughter by trying to control her love life. The passage also repeats the theme of honesty and defeat seen throughout the rest of the play.[1][2]

I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. (Hamlet, II.ii)
- Paraphrased: I would do nothing, but the conscience doesn't permit it.

Hamlet. My excellent good friends! How dost thou Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do you both?
Rosencrantz. As indifferent as children of the earth.
Guildenstern. Happy in that we are not overhappy. On Fortune's cap, we are not the very button.
Hamlet. Nor the soles of her shoe?
Guildenstern. Faith, her privates we.
Hamlet. In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true! She is a strumpet. What news?
Rosencrantz. None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.
Hamlet. Then is doomsday near. (II.ii)

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks. (Hamlet, II.ii)

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. (Hamlet, II.ii)

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so. (Hamlet, II.ii)

O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I. (Hamlet, II.ii)

The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. (Hamlet, II.ii)

Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping? (Hamlet, II.ii)

Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. (Polonius, II.ii)

Polonius. My honored lordy, I will most humbly take my leave of you.
Hamlet. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal--except my life--except my life--except my life. (II.ii)

Polonius. What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet. Words, words, words. (II.ii)

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Act III

Hamlet's Soliloquy is a well known soliloquy from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. It occurs in act three, scene one, in which the character Hamlet, depressed by events surrounding his father's apparent murder, seems to contemplate whether to be a man of action (like Hamlet Sr.) or to be a man of words (like Claudius), then waxes philosophical on why people choose to live on, despite the hardships of life. He does not contemplate suicide as most think. Hamlet mentions and debates that issue in the first soliloquy.

To be, or not to be, —that is the question:—
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? —To die, —to sleep,—
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, —'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, —to sleep;—
To sleep! perchance to dream: —ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,—
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,—puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know naught of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. (Hamlet, III.i)

—Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia!—Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd. (Hamlet, III.i)

Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? (Hamlet, III.i)

I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. (Hamlet, III.i)

Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
Hamlet. No, good mother. Here's metal more attractive. [Hamlet takes a place near Ophelia.]

Hamlet. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Ophelia. No, my lord.
Hamlet. I mean, my head upon your lap?
Ophelia. Ay, my lord.
Hamlet. Do you think I meant country matters? (III.ii)

So long? Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. Oh heavens, die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year. (Hamlet, III.ii)

The lady protests too much, methinks. (Gertrude, III.ii)

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 the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my 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 am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. (Hamlet, III.ii)

Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world., now could I drink hot blood! and do such bitter business, as the day would quake to look on (Hamlet, III.ii)

Ham. Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
Pol. By th' Mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.
Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.
Pol. It is backed like a weasel.
Ham. Or like a whale.
Pol. Very like a whale. (III.ii)

O! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven. (Claudius, III.iii)

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. (Cladius, III.iii)

What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself with brother's blood, is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow? (Claudius, III.iii)

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better. (Hamlet, III.iv)

O'I am Slain! (Polonius, III. iv)

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Act IV

Rosencrantz. I understand you not, my lord.

Hamlet. I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

Rosencrantz. My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.

Hamlet. The body is with the king but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing--

Guildenstern. A thing, my lord?

Hamlet. Of nothing. Bring me to him.

- Comment. In this apparant moment of Hamlet's insanity, what exactly is the "knavish speech" to which Hamlet is referring? It clearly has nothing to do with Polonius or Claudius: Hamlet seems to be understanding the meaning of the word lord and king on a metaphysical level. As soon as Hamlet calls the King dead (which is blasphemy) he foreshadows his own death by announcing his return to the Lord, by which he means God. While this double-meaning of the words king and lord may seem unique, it is not: Shakespeare uses it often in jokes, for example in Macbeth, Banquo says, Ay, my good lord, our time does call upon us (I.iii) and then goes to his death. During the Banquet, Lady Macbeth says, My royal lord, your noble friends do lack you. (An jesting attack directed at the royalty, III.iv), &c.
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, and breath of life, I have no life to breathe what thou hast said to me. - (Gertrude, IV)
Claudius. Where is Polonius?

Hamlet. In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i'th'other place yourself. But if indeed you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby. (Scene 3)

How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! (Hamlet, IV.iv)
- Paraphrased: Everything that happens rebukes me for not having taken revenge.
O! from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! (Hamlet, IV.iv)
When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions. (Claudius, IV.v)

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Act V

Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? (Hamlet, V.i)

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we may. (Hamlet, V.ii)

If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. (Hamlet, V.ii) -being ready to die, at the moment of your death, is all that ultimately matters. From the perspective of eternity, compared to which, this life is "but a vapor", being ready to die is all-important. The moment of death is inevitable, and the wise man will be prepared. Contrast this with the state of the soul of Hamlet's father's ghost, whom Hamlet called, "an honest ghost" (not a masquerading, deceiving demon). The ghost of Hamlet's father comments on the state of his own unexpected murder, and subsequent unconfessed existence in Purgatory: "Most horrible."

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. (Horatio, V.ii)

The rest is silence. (Hamlet, V.ii) see list of misquotations -a possible pun; Hamlet will be silent, or death may be silence, or the dead are silent, in that they can not usually return and speak to the living. Hamlet may also be saying that death ("rest") results in silence. An often argued quotation.