Revision:Hamlet Quotes
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Quotes by Characters
Hamlet
- We are arrant knaves all
- Rose of the fair state
- Free from all contriving
- Hamlet the Dane
- I shall win at the odds
- Punish me with this, and this with me (talking about Polonius’ death to Gertrude)
- Wounded name
- Oh, but that this too, too solid flesh would melt (contemplating suicide)
- A little more than kin and less than kind (a reply to Claudius's implications that they are related)
Claudius
- Dear mother
- You are the most immediate to our throne
- With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage (antithesis)
- Our sometime sister, now our queen (note the alliteration and blatant reference to the scandal- is he daring people to speak out? Also, use of royal pronoun)
- One contracted brow of woe (the whole kingdom is one- everyone must think as Claudius thinks)
- With one auspicious eye and one drooping eye- implications of being two faced.
- Smiling, damned villain (said by Hamlet)
- Painted word (describing his own guilt)
- Pray can I not
- Slander…may miss our name (Polonius’ death)
- I must commune with your grief
- I will work him to an exploit
- He is justly served (Laertes)
Gertrude
- Imperial jointress
- Thrift, thrift
- Thou hast thy father much offended
- What have I done?
- I will not speak with her
- Follow my mother
- Black and grained spots (in my soul)
- What shall I do?
- But not by him
- Let me wipe thy face
Ophelia
- Chaste treasure
- Pretty lady (Claudius)
- Her speech is nothing
- Great folk should have countenance…more than their even-Christian
- I do not know my lord what I should think
- I never gave you aught / you know right well you did
- How should I your true love know
- Let in the maid, that out a maid, never departed more
- I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died
Quotes on Themes
Women
- Frailty, thy name is woman
- Such a gain-giving as would perhaps trouble a woman
- Like a whore, unpack my heart with words
- Get thee to a nunnery
- What monsters you make of them (women are responsible for men’s inadequacies)
- Do you think I meant country matters? / I think nothing my lord
- ‘Tis brief / As woman’s love
- With a larger tether may he walk
- The woman will out
Fathers
- If thou didst ever thy dear father love
- Hyperion to a satyr
- To thine own self be true
- Put on him what forgeries you please (Polonius to Reynaldo)
- I would not...have you so slander any moment leisure
- I’ll loose my daughter to him
Love
- Incestuous sheets
- O’erhasty
- At your age the hey-day in the blood is tame
- I could not but by her (Claudius about Gertrude)
- Gertrude do not drink
- I did love you once
- Before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed
- Eat a crocodile? I’ll do’t (Hamlet professing his love)
- In the middle of her favours
Appearance vs Reality
- Seems madam?
- Seeming-virtuous
- Assume a virtue if you have it not
- This is the very ecstasy of love (Polonius about Hamlet’s madness)
- The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King
- Deliberate pause (sending Hamlet away must seem)
- So much was our love
- It well appears (Laertes on Hamlet’s guilt of killing Polonius)
Death
- Freeze thy young blood
- With all my imperfections on my head
- ‘Tis common (Gertrude describes death)
- Let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come
- A sea of troubles
- To be, or not to be
- Canon ‘gainst self-slaughter
- Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness
- My gorge rises at it
- The undiscovered country
- But ‘tis not so above (Claudius acknowledges he can’t deceive heaven)
- The rest is silence
- No man knows aught of what he leaves
- Outlive his life half a year (memory may)
- A king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar
Madness
- Antic disposition
- Who does it then? His madness
- This is mere madness (Gertrude describing Hamlet’s exaggerated professions of love)
- Marvellous distempered / With drink? (Guildenstern talking about Claudius)
- Crafty madness (Guildenstern about Hamlet)
- Madness in great ones must not unwatched go
- Not your trespass, but my madness speaks
- Lawless fit
- Toy (Gertrude describes Ophelia’s madness)
- This nothing’s more than matter (Laertes describes Ophelia’s madness)
- The poison of deep grief (Claudius about Ophelia’s madness)
- Incapable of her own distress
Corruption
- And I am sick at heart (Marcellus)
- Something is rotten in the state of Denmark (Marcellus)
- The stamp on one defect (Hamlet)
- The whole ear of Denmark is…rankly abused
- It is a massy wheel (Rosencrantz)
- He has my dying voice
- With sorrow I embrace my fortune
Quotes with Discussion Points
- "Oh that this too too sullied flesh might melt" - start of a soliloquy where H expresses sadness @ his position, preference for death over living even.
- "Do you doubt it?" - Ophelias first line, possibly affectionate rhetorical question, but alternatively Laertes swift moving on to the topic of Hamlet portrays his preoccupation with his own matters and intentions on leaving and lack of real interest in what Ophelia has to say. Also, that her first line is a question, a response to Laertes, rather than a statement of her own, reflects how throughout the play she is merely reacting to others actions, Shakespeare is conveying how her position as a woman gives her little ability to be anything other than passive.
- "Not so my Lord; I am too much in the sun." - Is this Hamlets first line...no that is said aside, but this line is his first said aloud to the court and it reflects his lack of power in the court, Shakespeare conveys Hamlets intelligence through his clever use of wordplay, his sadness in his choice of words, his inability to expres his true feelings in such an environment due to the repressed nature of his implication...
- "together with remembrance of ourselves" - throughout Claudius first speech he moves swiftly from condolences for the dead king to his own plans, advances and gains, in this way Shakespeare immediately makes Claudius gains in his new position, and potential motives for murder of the previous king, apparent and gives him a suspicious cxharacter in that he is not more sympathetic to Hamlet's sadness.
- "Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice" - Shakespeare immediately conveys Polonius hypocritical tendencies and sets him up as a foolish character, keen to advise but lacking true understanding of his advice in that he himself does not follow it.
- "my lord" - Ophelia consistantly addresses Polonius with this phrase, conveying her obedience to him, her dependance on him and her own lack of power. With each repetition the audience are aware of a sense of repression in that she has no freedom to act as she may choose.
- "I know not what i should think" - Ophelia here is asking what she should think, conveying that while she does have thoughts she does not know what thoughts would be appropriate according to Polonius and the Court and almost asking to be told what to think, what to do...
- "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" - Shakespeare conveys Hamlets frustration a his own inaction aswell as his awareness that thinking is not helping him to resolve the issue. - I can't remember exactly where this quotes from though, need to find out to figure out its relevance...
- "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
- Words without thoughts never to heaven go" - Shakespeare conveys the predicament Claudius is caught in, he cannot repent so he is aware he will go to hell...his regret that this is his end is shown in his thoughts and a more vulnerable side to claudius is exposed.
- "Theres a divinity that shapes out ends" - Hamlet seems to resign himself to fate at the end of the play...placing his trust in God
- "There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow...Let be."
- "The rest is silence." - Shakespeare is either showing how there is no need for Hamlet to say anymore and has found peace, in which case the end of the play is resolved, or else there is a sense that Hamlet has given up in meeting his end, that his battle with conscience, morality and justice has merely resulted in death and loss...not sure how to justify this second idea better.
Comments
Originally posted by diamonds_glitter_trauma_tears and ChocolateCherry on TSR Forums.
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