Poison, Corruption and Death - Hamlet Quotes

Question 1

Unusual ceremonies - Hamlet 1:2

Answer 1

‘the funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables’

Question 2

Unsuccessful prayer - Claudius 3:3

Answer 2

‘My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go’

Question 3

Unnatural incest - Hamlet 1:2

Answer 3

‘such dexterity to incestuous sheets’

Question 4

Perversion of the Royal Family - Ghost 1:5

Answer 4

‘Let not the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damned incest’

Question 5

Claudius’ impact on the family - Hamlet 5:2

Answer 5

‘he that hath killed my King and whored my mother’

Question 6

Foreshadowing ghost (volcano) - Horatio 1:1

Answer 6

‘this bodes some strange eruption to our state’

Question 7

Foreshadowing ghost - Horatio 1:1

Answer 7

‘the live precurse of fear’d events’

Question 8

Corruption and decay - Marcellus 1:4

Answer 8

‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark’

Question 9

Revenge request - Ghost 1:5

Answer 9

‘revenge this foul and most unnatural murder’

Question 10

Subversion of natural order 1:5

Answer 10

‘the serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown’

Question 11

Reason for suicide - Gertrude 4:7

Answer 11

‘as one incapable of her own distress’

Question 12

Ophelia’s madness - Laertes 4:5

Answer 12

‘a document in madness’

Question 13

Link between death and madness - Laertes 4:5

Answer 13

‘is’t possible a young maid’s wits should be as mortal as an old man’s life?’

Question 14

Revenge but not the main one - Laertes 4:5

Answer 14

‘I’ll be revenged most thoroughly for my father’

Question 15

Renouncing loyalty - Laertes 4:5

Answer 15

‘to hell allegiance’

Question 16

Mourning and poison - Claudius 4:5

Answer 16

‘O this is the poison of deep grief’

Question 17

Death and corruption linking to Polonius - Hamlet 4:3

Answer 17

‘a certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him’

Question 18

Polonius’ corrupt character - Hamlet 3:4

Answer 18

‘thou wretched rash, intruding fool’

Question 19

Foreshadowing - Francisco 1:1

Answer 19

‘sick at heart’

Question 20

Self awareness and decaying imagery - Claudius 3:3

Answer 20

‘my offence is rank, it smells to heaven’

Question 21

Imagery of disease in revenge - Hamlet 3:3

Answer 21

‘this physic but prolongs thy sickly days’

Question 22

Corruption and control of Polonius - Polonius 2:1

Answer 22

‘take it as ‘twere some distant knowledge of him’

Question 23

Suicide and decay - Hamlet 1:2

Answer 23

‘O that this too, too solid flesh would melt’

Question 24

Horrible sexual imagery - Hamlet 3:4

Answer 24

‘in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed’

Question 25

Imagery of decay in humanity - Hamlet 2:2

Answer 25

'foul and pestilent congregation of vapours'

Question 26

Death and decay, meaninglessness of status - Hamlet 3:4

Answer 26

'how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar'

Question 27

Imagery of weeds and corruption - Hamlet 1:2

Answer 27

''tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature possess it merely'

Question 28

Destruction of humanity in death - Hamlet 5:1

Answer 28

'Alas, poor Yorick! [...] a fellow of infinite jest... Where are your jibes now?'

Question 29

Meaning either his mind or the corrupted state of the world - Hamlet 1:5

Answer 29

'distracted globe'

Question 30

Claudius, using emphatic feminine ending - Hamlet 1:5

Answer 30

'O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!'