William Shakespeare, Hamlet

 

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Arden 2007

 

Marcellus: It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated

This bird of dawning singeth all night long,

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,

The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallowed and so gracious is that time. (1.1.156-63)

 

King: … For your intent

In going back to school in Wittenberg

It is most retrograde to our desire, (1.2.112-4)

 

Laertes: Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,

And keep you in the rear of your affection (1.3.32-3)

 

Ophelia: Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads (1.3.48) [flower-strewn road of pleasure, often seen as the way to hell]

 

Ghost: …Sleeping within my orchard—

My custom always of the afternoon—

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole

With juice of cursed hebona in a vial

And in the porches of my ears did pour

The leperous distilment… (1.4.59-64)

 

Ghost: Thus was I sleeping by a brother’s hand

Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled,

No reckoning made but sent to my account

With all my imperfections on my head.

O horrible, O horrible, most horrible! (1.5.74-80)

 

Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come,

Here as before: never—so help you mercy,

How strange or odd some’er I bear myself

(As I perchance hereafter shall think meet

To put an antic disposition on)—

That you at such times seeing me never shall

With arms unencumbered thus, or this headshake,

Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase

As ‘Well, well, we know’, or ‘We could an if we would’,

Or ‘If we list to speak’, or ‘There by an if they might’,

Or such ambiguous giving out to note

That you know aught of me. This do swear,

So grace and mercy at your most need help you. (1.5.159-78)

 

King: Thanks, Rosencrantz, and gentle Guildenstern.

Queen: Thanks, Guildenstern, and gentle Rosencrantz. (2.2.33-4)

 

Polonius: [Reads] To the celestial and my soul’s idol, the most

beautified Ophelia—that’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase,

‘beautified’ is a vile phrase, but you shall hear—thus in

her excellent white bosom, these, etc. (2.2.108-11)

 

Polonius: How does my lord Hamlet?

Hamlet: Well, God-a-mercy.

Polonius: Do you know me, my lord?

Hamlet: Excellent well, you are a fishmonger.

Polonius: Not I, my lord.

Hamlet: Then I would you were so honest a man.

Polonius: Honest, my lord?

Hamlet: Ay, sir, to be honest as this world goes is to be

one man picked out of ten thousand.

Polonius: That’s very true, my lord.

Hamlet: For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog,

being a good kissing carrion—have you a daughter?

Polonius: I have, my lord.

Hamlet: Let her not walk i’th’sun: conception is a

blessing but as your daughter may conceive, friend—

look to’t. (2.2.168-83)

 

Polonius: …My lord, I will take my leave of you.

Hamlet: You cannot take from me anything that I will

not more willingly part withal—except my life, except

my life, except my life. (2.2.209-12)

 

Hamlet: …this goodly frame the earth seems

to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy

the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this

majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it

appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent

congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man

—how noble in reason; how infinite in faculties, in form

and 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… (2.2.264-75)

 

Hamlet: …I remember one said

there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter

savoury nor no matter in the phrase that might indict

the author of affection, but called in an honest method,

as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more

handsome than fine. … (2.2.378-83)

 

Polonius: ‘Tis too much proved that with devotion’s visage

And pious action we do sugar o’er

The devil himself.

King: O, ‘tis too true. (3.1.44-7)

 

Hamlet: 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 wished—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: … (3.1.56-67)

 

Hamlet: Ha! Ha! Are you honest?

Ophelia: My lord?

Hamlet: Are you fair?

Ophelia: What means your lordship?

Hamlet: That if you be honest and fair you should admit

no discourse to  your beauty.

Ophelia: Could Beauty, my lord, have better commerce

than with Honesty?

Hamlet: Ay, truly. For the power of Beauty will sooner

transform Honesty from what it is to a bawd than the

force of Honesty can translate Beauty into his likeness.

This was sometimes a paradox, but now the time gives it

Proof. I did love you once.

Ophelia: Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

Hamlet: You should not have believed me. For virtue

cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of

it. I loved you not.

Ophelia: I was the more deceived.

Hamlet: Get thee to a nunnery!... (3.1.102-20)

 

Ophelia: [aside] O help him, you sweet heavens!

Hamlet: If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for

thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,

thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. (3.1.133-6)

 

Hamlet: God hath given you one face and you make yourselves

another. You jig and amble and you lisp, you

nickname God’s creatures… (3.1.142-4)

 

Ophelia: O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!

The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s eye, tongue, sword,

Th’expectation and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

Th’observed of all observers, quite, quite down.

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,

That sucked the honey of his musicked vows,

Now see what noble and most sovereign reason

Like sweet bells jangled out of time and harsh— (3.1.149-57)

 

Hamlet: Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced

it to you—trippingly on the tongue. … (3.2.1-2)

 

Hamlet: …For thou hast been

As one in suffering all that suffers nothing—

A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards

Hast ta’en with equal thanks. And blest are those

Whose blood and judgement are so well co-meddled

That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger

To sound what stop she please. … (3.2.60-7)

 

Queen: The lady doth protest too much, methinks. (3.2.224) [makes too many protestations (of her determination not to marry again)]

 

Rosencrantz: Good my lord, what is your cause of

distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own

liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.

Hamlet: Sir, I lack advancement.

Rosencrantz: How can that be, when you have the

voice of the King himself for your succession in

Denmark?

Hamlet: Ay, sir, but while the grass grows—the proverb

is something musty. (3.2.328-36) [Tilley cites ‘While the grass grows the horse starves’]

 

Hamlet: I do not well understand that. Will you play

upon this pipe?

Guildenstern: My lord, I cannot.

Hamlet: I pray you.

Guildenstern: Believe me, I cannot.

Hamlet: I beseech you.

Guildenstern: I know no touch of it, my lord.

Hamlet: It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with

your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your

mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look

you, these are the stops.

Guildenstern: But these cannot I command any

utterance of harmony. I have not skill.

Hamlet: Why, look you now how unworthy a thing you

make of me: you would play upon me! … (3.2.342-56)

 

Polonius: My lord, the Queen would speak with you,

and presently.

Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape

Of a camel?

Polonius: By th’mass and ‘tis like a camel indeed.

Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.

Polonius; It is backed like a weasel.

Hamlet: Or like a whale?

Polonius: Very like a whale.

Hamlet: Then I will come to my mother, by and by. (3.2.365-74)

 

King; …But O, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn: ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?

That cannot be, since I am still possessed

Of those effects for which I did the murder,

My crown, mine own ambition and my Queen, (3.3.51-5)

 

Hamlet: Up sword, and know thou a more horrid hent

When he is drunk, asleep or in his rage,

Or in th’incestuous pleasure of his bed,

At game a-swearing, or about some act

That has no relish of salvation in’t.

Then trip him that his heels may kick at heaven

And that his soul may be as damned and black

As hell whereto he goes. … (3.3.88-95)

 

Hamlet: Now, mother, what’s the matter?

Queen: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended. (3.4.7-9)

 

Hamlet: Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed

Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love

Over the nasty sty—

Queen: O speak to me no more!

These words like daggers enter my ears.

No more, sweet Hamlet.

Hamlet: A murderer and a villain,

A slave that is not twentieth part the kith

Of your precedent lord, a vice of kings,

A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,

That from a shelf the precious diadem stole

And put it in his pocket— (3.4.89-98)

 

Hamlet: Assume a virtue if you have it not. (3.4.158)

 

Rosencrantz: I understand you not, my lord.

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

foolish ear. (4.2.20-2)

 

King: Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

Hamlet: At supper.

King: At supper! Where?

Hamlet: Not where he eats but where ‘a is eaten. A

certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him.

Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all

creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots.

Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable

service, two dishes but to one table. That’s the end.

King: Alas, alas.

Hamlet: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of

a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

King: What dost thou mean by this?

Hamlet: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a

progress through the guts of a beggar.

King: 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 fund him not within this

month you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into

the lobby.

King: [to some Attendants] Go, seek him there! (4.3.16-36)

 

Hamlet: Farewell, dear mother.s

King: Thy loving father, Hamlet.

Hamlet: My mother. Father and mother is a man and wife.

Man and wife is one flesh. So—my mother. (4.3.47-50)

 

Queen: So full of artless jealousy is guilt

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. (4.5.19-20)

 

Laertes: …O rose of May,

Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia,

O heaven’s is’t possible a young maid’s wits

Should be as mortal as a poor man’s life? (4.5.157-9)

 

Ophelia: There’s rosemary: that’s for remembrance.

Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies: that’s

for thoughts.

Laertes: A document in madness—thoughts and remembrance

fitted!

Ophelia: There’s fennel for you, and columbines.

There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me. We may

call it herb of grace o’Sundays. You may wear your rue

with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you

some violets, but they withered all when my father

died. They say ‘a made a good end.

          Sings

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

Laertes: Thought and afflictions, passion, hell itself

She turns to favour and to prettiness. (4.5.169-81)

 

Queen: There is a willow grows askant the brook

That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream.

Therewith fantastic garlands did she make

Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies and long purples,

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name

But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.

There on the pendent boughs her crownet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke,

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide

And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,

Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds

As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and endued

Unto that element. But long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.

Laertes: Alas, then she is drowned.

Queen: Drowned, drowned. (4.7.164-83)

 

Gravedigger: A pestilence on him for a mad rogue. ‘A

poured a flagon of Rheinish on my head once! This

same skull, sir, was, sir, Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.

Hamlet: This?

Gravedigger: E’en that.

Hamlet: Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio. A

fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath

bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how

abhorred in my imagination it is. My gorge rises at it. (5.1.169-77)

 

Hamlet: Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

O, that the earth which kept the world in awe

Should patch a wall t’expel the water’s flaw. (5.1.202-5)

 

Queen: Anon, as patient as the female dove

When that her golden couplets are disclosed,

His silence will sit drooping. (5.1.275-7)

 

Osric: The King, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary

horses… (5.2.130-1)

 

Hamlet: O, I die, Horatio.

The potent poison quite o’ercrowns my spirit,

I cannot live to hear the news from England,

But I do prophesy th’election lights

On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice.

So tell him with th’occurrents more or less

Which have solicited. I—The rest is silence. [Dies.] (5.2.336-42) [an audience living under a hereditary monarchy would suppose that Hamlet, having been named as the King’s heir, would have the right to nominate his own. Having been born on the day that old Hamlet overcame old Fortinbras, young Hamlet makes restitution to young Fortinbras as he dies. Voice is used here in the sense of vote.]