Hamlet 3:1

Question 1

Act 3, Scene 1 importance

Answer 1

• Act 3 is the “moving” act
• 3:1 is the “nunnery scene”

Question 2

‘And can you by no drift…’

Answer 2

‘And can you by no drift of conference/ Get from him why he puts on this confusion,/ Grating so harshly all his days of quiet/ With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?’ - King
- trying to find an excuse to get rid of Hamlet (knows H resents him, why not Wittenberg?)
- fishing for bad news (‘turbulent and dangerous lunacy’)

Question 3

Ros and Gil report to the King about H

Answer 3

• don’t tell the whole truth (‘from what cause ‘a will by no means speak’)
• fear of letting the king down plus loyalty to H

Question 4

‘But from what…’

Answer 4

‘But from what cause ‘a will by no means speak.’ - Ros

Question 5

‘But, with a…’

Answer 5

‘But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof/ When we would bring him on to some confession/ Of his true state.’ - Guildenstern

Question 6

‘but of our demands…’

Answer 6

‘but of our demands/ Most free in his reply.’ - Ros
- doesn’t seem accurate

Question 7

‘Sweet Gertrude…’

Answer 7

‘Sweet Gertrude, leave us too’ - King
- the only other female voice is ushered away

Question 8

’- lawful espials -‘

Answer 8

’- lawful espials -‘
- in parenthesis (off the cuff)
- trying to justify himself

Question 9

‘Ophelia, I do wish…’

Answer 9

‘Ophelia, I do wish/ That your good beauties be the happy cause/ Of Hamlet’s wildness; so shall I hope your virtues/ will bring him to his wonted way again,/ To both your honours.’ - Queen
- thinks O will have a positive influence
- respectful and kind to O

Question 10

‘And pious action…’

Answer 10

‘And pious action we do sugar o’er/ The devil himself.’ - Polonius
- make themselves look good, hide sins

Question 11

‘[Aside] O, ‘tis…’

Answer 11

‘[Aside] O, ‘tis too true!/ How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!/’ - King
‘plast’ring art’ - K
‘O heavy burden!’ - K
- he has something to feel guilty over

Question 12

Hamlet’s soliloquy in 3:1

Answer 12

• melancholia (in built even before he knew about the regicide)
• some directors have Hamlet aware that P and K are observing his interaction with O
• semantic field of violence, war

Question 13

‘To be, or not…’

Answer 13

‘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?’ - Hamlet 3:1 soliloquy
- questioning (inaction?)
- fate, change his destiny
- projectiles (‘slings’ ‘arrows’) show he is out of control
- existential

Question 14

‘To die; to sleep’

Answer 14

‘To die; to sleep’ - Hamlet’s 3:1 soliloquy
- repeated later in the soliloquy

Question 15

‘When we have shuffled…’

Answer 15

‘When we have shuffled off this mortal coil’ - Hamlet, 3:1 soliloquy
- existence and non-existence (avoids using ‘death’)

Question 16

‘Thus conscience does…’

Answer 16

‘Thus conscience does make cowards of us all’ - Hamlet, 3:1 soliloquy
- reminiscent of the ‘am I a coward?’
- reason not emotion

Question 17

‘I never gave you…’

Answer 17

‘I never gave you aught.’ - Hamlet to O
- antic disposition, cruelty, truth?
- what about the letter P read to the King

Question 18

Hamlet-Ophelia conversation 3:1

Answer 18

• Ophelia is made a scapegoat for women’s sins (misogyny)

Question 19

‘That if you be honest…’

Answer 19

‘That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.’ - Hamlet to O
- if Ophelia is chaste she should not entertain comments on her beauty

Question 20

‘for the power of beauty…’

Answer 20

‘for the power of beauty will sooner transform honest from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness.’ - Hamlet
- “beauty can destroy chastity in a woman far more easily than chastity can make a beautiful woman honest”

Question 21

‘You should not have…’

Answer 21

‘You should not have believ’d me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.’ - Hamlet to O.
- blames Ophelia

Question 22

‘Get thee to a…’

Answer 22

‘Get thee to a nunnery.’ - Hamlet to O
- says this (or versions) 4 times within this conversation
- ‘nunnery’ was also a term for a brothel in elizabethan times

Question 23

‘Why wouldst thou be…’

Answer 23

‘Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me’ - Hamlet to O
- telling her not to have a child to prevent more sinners being brought into the world

Question 24

‘We are arrant knaves…’

Answer 24

‘We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father?’ - Hamlet to O

Question 25

‘If thou dost marry, I’ll…’

Answer 25

‘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.’ - Hamlet to O
- marriage will not save her from a bad reputation

Question 26

‘Or, if thou wilt needs…’

Answer 26

‘Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them.’ - Hamlet to O
- wise men know that women cheat

Question 27

‘I have heard of your paintings…’

Answer 27

‘I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.’ - Hamlet to O
- ‘you’ refers to women, he is generalising

Question 28

‘O, what a noble…’

Answer 28

‘O, what a noble mind is here o’er-thrown!’ - Ophelia
- Hamlet has changed (antic disposition or learning about his uncle?)

Question 29

‘That unmatch’d form…’

Answer 29

‘That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth/ Blasted with ecstasy’ - Ophelia about H
- antic disposition

Question 30

‘Love! His affections…Nor what he spake…’

Answer 30

‘Love! His affections do not that way tend;/ Nor what he spake, though it lack’d form a little,/ Was not like madness.’ - Claudius after watching the H-O conversation
- Hamlet is not mad? at the least not due to love

Question 31

‘There’s something in…’

Answer 31

‘There’s something in his soul/ O’er which his melancholy sits on brood;/ And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose/ Will be some danger’ - Claudius
- Hamlet is brooding on something that may have a wide fallout
- says he will send him ‘with speed to England’ to prevent the fallout (control)

Question 32

‘Let his queen mother all…’

Answer 32

‘Let his queen mother all alone entreat him/ To show his grief. Let her be round with him;/ And I’ll be plac’d, so please you, in the ear/ Of all their conference’ - Polonius
- try to use H’s relationship with his mother
- spying and espionage again (‘in the ear’)
- this will lead to his death behind the arras

Question 33

‘If she find him…’

Answer 33

‘If she find him not [gone mad from love],/ To England send him; or confine him where/ Your wisdom best shall think.’ - P
- plots again
- ‘confine him’ is reminiscent of H’s ‘Denmark is a prison’ earlier

Question 34

‘It shall be so…’

Answer 34

‘It shall be so:/ Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.’ - King