Act 2 Quotes

Question 1

Act 2 Scene 1
Polonius tells Reynaldo to tell lies about Laertes

Answer 1

Put on him what forgeries you please

Question 2

Act 2 Scene 1
Polonius telling Reynaldo the type of lies to put on Laertes (things known of young people)

Answer 2

Wanton wild and unusual slips as are companions noted and most known to youth and liberty…drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling, drabbing

Question 3

Act 2 Scene 1
Polonius assigning Reynaldo to put out lies about Laertes in order to illicit the truth

Answer 3

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth

Question 4

Act 2 Scene 1
Ophelia telling Polonius how Hamlet visited her bedroom looking out of sorts/ungentlemanly (mad)

Answer 4

Doublet all unbraced…stockings fouled, ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle
As if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of horrors

Question 5

Act 2 Scene 2
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern newly arrived to Elsinore and childhood friends of Hamlet King Claudius gives them instructions a spy on Hamlet report back

Answer 5

So much as from occasion you may glean, whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus that opened lies within our remedy

Question 6

Act 2 Scene 2
After reading Hamlets letters to Ophelia to Gertrude and Claudius, Polonius surmises Hamlet is mad (with love) and describes its symptoms

Answer 6

Thence to a watch thence into a weakness, thence to a lightness and by this declension into the madness wherein he now raves

Question 7

Act 2 Scene 2
Polonius devises a plan to test if the source of Hamlets seeming madness is his love for Ophelia – involves forcing Ophelia to interact with Hamlet

Answer 7

I’ll loose my daughter to him

Question 8

Act 2 Scene 2
Polonius devises a plan to test if the source of Hamlets seeming madness is his love for Ophelia – he and King Claudius will watch Hamlets interaction with Ophelia

Answer 8

Be you and I behind an arras then, mark the encounter

Question 9

Act 2 Scene 2
Hamlet is being equivocal and trying to show Polonius he is mad – Actually speaking a profound truth Hamlet is perceptive

Answer 9

For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion

Question 10

Act 2 Scene 2
Polonius’ thoughts on Hamlet’s feigned madness

Answer 10

Though this be madness, yet there is method in it

Question 11

Act 2 Scene 2
Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about sense of entrapment he feels (fathers task)

Answer 11

Denmark’s a prison…there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one of the worst

Question 12

Act 2 Scene 2
Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about how everything is based on how people interpret things

Answer 12

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so

Question 13

Act 2 Scene 2
Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on how he is feeling misanthropic and corruption in Denmark

Answer 13

Why it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours
What a piece of work is man

Question 14

Act 2 Scene 2
Hamlet reveals to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he is feigning madness/ it is a pretense - they don’t catch on

Answer 14

I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw

Question 15

Act 2 Scene 2
In Hamlet’s third soliloquy his soul is in tumult over his father’s command and it is having a degenerating effect on his psyche

Answer 15

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Question 16

Act 2 Scene 2
In Hamlet’s third soliloquy he wonders at how the player can be so emotional over a fictional character (is the catalyst for this soliloquy)

Answer 16

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?

Question 17

Act 2 Scene 2
In Hamlet’s third soliloquy he calls himself a coward and reprimands himself for thinking too much and not carrying out his father’s command

Answer 17

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, Like a John-a-dreams unpregnant of my cause

Question 18

Act 2 Scene 2
In Hamlet’s third soliloquy he calls himself a coward

Answer 18

I am pigeon-livered and lack gall

Question 19

Act 2 Scene 2
In Hamlet’s third soliloquy he knows killing Claudius would be justice, but murder is a sin

Answer 19

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell

Question 20

Act 2 Scene 2
In Hamlet’s third soliloquy compares himself to a harlot who confesses sins, but just goes back to doing the same thing

Answer 20

Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words

Question 21

Act 2 Scene 2
In Hamlet’s third soliloquy he acknowledges that the ghost he has seen may be the devil and he may have been tricked

Answer 21

The spirit that I have seen may be the devil and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape

Question 22

Act 2 Scene 2
In Hamlets third soliloquy acknowledges role his emotions play, think it renders him weak, link to humors

Answer 22

Out of my weakness and my melancholy

Question 23

Act 2 Scene 2
In Hamlets third soliloquy he decides to commission a play (The Mouse Trap) in order to test whether the ghost was telling the truth

Answer 23

The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King