Hamlet quotes Flashcards
“Who’s there?”
“Barnardo?”
“Who is there?”
“Say, what, is Horatio there?”
“What think on’t?”
“Is it not like the King?”
“Who is’t that can inform me?”
A1 S1 (not one solid part of the play)
various questions throughout the scene
sense of mystery, suspicion and distrust
“‘Tis bitter cold,/And I am sick at heart”
A1S1, Francisco when Bernardo relieves his post
pathetic fallacy
“has this thing appeared again tonight?” - “thing” inhuman
“‘tis but our fantasy”
“tush, tush, ‘twill not appear”
“so fortified against our story” - “fortified” as if one needs protections against the danger of the ghost/the story
A1S1 - discussions of the ghost
uncertainty, building tension
ghost not regarded as human
suspicion reflects elizabethan attitudes
“wisest sorrow”
“defeated joy”
“dirge in marriage”
“delight and dole”
A1S2 Claudius’ speech
lots of oxymorons
awkward, slight distrust
“A little more than kin/and less than kind”
A1S2 Hamlet’s first words
addressed to audience - metatheatrical
scathing, comedic, quick, witty
response to Claudius: “but now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son”
“How is it that the clouds still hang on you?”
“Not so much, my lord. I am too much in the son.”
A1S2 - Claudius asking Hamlet if he’s still grieving and his response
another wordplay
"”Seems,” madam, nay, it is.”
A1S2 - Hamlet being open with Gertrude about his feelings
shows concern with appearance vs reality
“‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, cold mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river of the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage”
A1S2 - Hamlet discussing what shows he is mourning
“impious stubbornness: ‘tis unmanly grief.
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified or mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschooled.”
A1S2 - Claudius vague attack on Hamlet’s mourning, implying he won’t make a good king and that excessive grieving is unreligious
“we beseech you bend you to remain/Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye”
“I shall in all my best obey you, madam”
A1S2 - Claudius asking H to not go back to Wittenburg
Hamlet only agrees once he sees it’s what his mum wants and addresses her only
“Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter.”
A1S2 - Hamlet’s first soliloquy
expresses desire to commit suicide
describes his body physically disintegrating
“O, God, God,
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t, ah, fie. ‘Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.”
A1S2 -Hamlet’s first soliloquy
tricolon
reflecting on the state of Denmark
“Hyperion to a satyr”
“no more like my father/than I to Hercules.”
A1S2 - Hamlet’s first soliloquy
comparing his father and Claudius - hyperbolic
shows his grief and hatred of C
classical references show education/intelligence
“Let me think on’t. Frailty, thy name is woman!”
A1S2 - Hamlet’s first soliloquy
upset at his mother
also shows pensiveness
“a beast that wants discourse of reason/Would have mourned longer”
“unrighteous tears”
“most wicked speed, to post/With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!”
A1S2 - Hamlet’s first soliloquy
discussing C and G
shows his disgust
lots of sibilence
“But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”
A1S2 - ending of H’s first soliloquy
aware of his situation
“The funeral baked meats/Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables”
A1S2 - Horatio jokes with H about how close his father’s funeral and his mother’s wedding were
shows close relationship
“A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute-
No more.”
“His will is not his own”
“Fear it, Ophelia, fear it”
“The chariest maid is prodigal enough/If she unmask her beauty to the moon.”
A1S3- Laertes advising O against sleeping with H
implying that she is naive
the moon is a symbol of chastity
brotherly advice
“Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven
Whiles, a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks his own rede.”
A1S3 - O responds to L’s advice against sleeping with H
implying he is hypocritical
shows O’s competence and intelligence
“Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar”
“Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement”
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be”
“rich not gaudy”
“listen to many, but speak to few”
“This above all - to thine own self be true”
A1S3 - P’s advice to L before he leaves
arguably fairly good advice but very convoluted
reliant on aphorisms
shown as a typical politician that can’t stick to one idea
fairly ironic since he sends spies after him
“Perilous circumstances”
“Behooves my daughter and my honour”
“Green girl”
“Think yourself a baby”
“You’ll tender me a fool”
“be something scanter of your maiden presence”
“Do not believe his vows”
A1S3 - P advising O not to sleep with H
concerned with family honour and reputation
views her as naive and vulnerable
H: “The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold”
Horatio: “It is a nipping and eager air.”
A1S4 - pathetic fallacy
builds tenseness
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
A1S4 - Marcellus
tense, mysterious
lack of trust esp as about to see ghost
“I do not set my life at a pin’s fee”
A1S4 - H feeling suicidal and not valuing his life
“What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness?”
A1S4 - Horatio is concerned the ghost is evil
reflects protestant fears about ghosts being demons turning people mad/ killing them
lots of foreshadowing
shows Horatio caring about H
Hamlet addresses the ghost with “thou”
A1S5
informal
suggests he views the ghost as his dad, rather than using “it”
“sulf’rous and tormenting flames.”
“Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,/And for the day confined to fast in fires,/Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature/Are burnt and purged away.”
A1S5 - ghost describing purgatory-like conditions
protestants don’t believe in purgatory but catholics do
repeated f sounds - like flickering flames
perfect iambic pentameter
fiery semantic field
“Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder”
A1S5 - Ghost’s demands for H
“I with wings as swift
as meditation or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge”
“Thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain”
A1S5 - H promises the ghost
lots of irony
shows he believes the ghost
“The serpent that did sting thy father’s life/Now wears his crown.
“That incestuous, that adulterate beast”
“So to seduce - won to his shameful lust/The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen”
A1S5 - Ghost describing C
serpent like the devil - sybilence
“Leave her to heaven”
A1S5 - Ghost orders H to not punish G
She’ll be judged by god
“Cursed hebona in a vial,/And in the porches of my ears did pour/the leperous distilment”
“Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,/
All my smooth body”
“Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand,/Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched”
A1S5 - ghost remembering his death
reference to Cain and Abel (Cain murders his brother out of jealousy)
Potentially lists in order of importance - love for G
“O most pernicious woman!/O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!”
“Now, to my word. It is ‘Adieu, adieu. Remember me.’ I have sworn’t.”
“That one may smile and be a villain.”
A1S5 - H’s second soliloquy
Deeply passionate - lots of exclamatives which disrupt his rhythm
emphasis on smiling shows his concern with appearance vs reality
“thy commandment all alone shall live/
Within the book and volume of my brain/
Unmixed with baser matter.”
“Now to my word./It is ‘Adieu, adieu, remember me.’/I have sworn’t.”
A1S5 - H addressing ghost
rage and revenge are his new purposes - ironic
H decides to “put an antic disposition on”
A1S5
“Put on him/What forgeries you please-marry, none so rank/As may dishonour him
“Drinking, fencing, swearing,/Quarreling, drabbing” “Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth”
“You must not put another scandal on him.”
A2S1 - P conspiring with Reynaldo to spy on L
theme of surveillance
deeply concerned with reputation
overly elaborate
“Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,/
No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled,/
Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle./
Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,/
And with a look so piteous in purport/
As if he had been loosed out of Hell/
To speak of horrors-he comes before me.”
A2S1 - O describing H approaching her in his madness
lots of dramatic irony
he appears almost like a ghost
“Mad for love?”
“This is the very ecstasy of love”
A2S1 - Polonius thinks H’s love for O has driven him mad
“Brevity is the soul of wit”
A2S2 - Polonius
ironic considering his extremely over elaborate speech
“Your noble son is mad”
“That he’d mad, ‘tis true, ‘tis true, ‘tis pity,/And pity ‘tis, ‘tis true”
A2S2 - P giving C and G his opinion on H’s behaviour
“Excellent well. You are a fishmonger”
what do you read, my lord”, “words, words, words”
A2S2 - H and P
H putting on “antic disposition”
fishmonger is a euphemism for a brothel keeper
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.-“
A2S2 - P during interaction with H
alliterative emphasises duality of H in this scene
“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; nor women neither”
A2S2 - H on humanity
nihilistic attitude
expression of his depression
“I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw”
A2S2 - H describing madness to R+G
warning that he’s often sane
can distinguish enemies from friends
showing his distrust of them
“You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which our modesties have not craft enough to colour. I know the good King and Queen have sent for you.”
A2S2 - H shows he knows why R+G are there
followed by H: “Nay, then, I have an eye of you. AIf you love me, hold not off”
G: “My Lord, we were sent for.”
“For the supply and profit of our hope”
“My too much changed son”
A2S2 - G offers R+G compensation for their spying on H
