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