Religion

Question 1

Short hand for “Protestant”

The play can’t seem to make up its mind about whether or not the play is set in a Catholic or Protestant world—just like England itself, throughout most of the 16th century.

Answer 1

“I pray thee, stay with us. Go not to Wittenberg.”

Question 2

Reference to the biblical story of Cain and Abel. Comparing his sin of killing Old Hamlet to Cain’s sin of killing Abel

Answer 2

“O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven”

Question 3

Since Ophelia’s death is suspect, the Priest refuses to do anything more than the bare minimum for Ophelia. But Laertes isn’t having it: he thinks that the stingy burial rites aren’t doing Ophelia’s memory justice. He understands what the priest doesn’t: burial services are rituals for the living.

Answer 3

“Lay her i’ th’ earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring!”

Question 4

Horatio warns Hamlet that he’ll lose the duel with Laertes, he reveals that he’s decided to give in to God’s “providence,” i.e. fate. The reference to the “fall of the sparrow” is from Matthew 10.29 —”Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father” —which is taken to mean that God oversees the life and death of every single creature, even the sparrow. Was Hamlet’s delay just a way of resisting fate all along?

Answer 4

“There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”