Hamlet

Table of contents

1 Hamlet (1598-1602) 2 Act I 3 Act II 4 Act III 5 Act IV 6 Act V

Hamlet (1598-1602)

by William Shakespeare

Act I

• A little more than kin, and less than kind. (Hamlet, I.ii)
  • Paraphrased: You're more than family and less kind, or less than the same type.

• Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not 'seems'. (Hamlet, I.ii)

• O! That this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew. (Hamlet, I.ii)

• 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)

• 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)

• Neither a borrower nor a lender be (Polonius, I.iii)

• This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. (Polonius, I.iii)

• It is a custom more honour'd in the breach than the observance. (Hamlet, I.iv)

• Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. (Marcellus, I.iv)

• 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).

Act II

• 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.

• 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 lord, 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)

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 suicide, then waxes philosophical on why people choose to live on despite the hardships of life.

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 not 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 pith 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)

• The lady doth protest 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)

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

• ¨ Words, words, words. ¨¨

Act IV

• 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.i)
• Claudius. Where is Polonius?

Hamlet. In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seem 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)

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)

• 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)

• 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