truth- telling and lies Flashcards
;yes,by saint patrick, ‘
‘it is an honest ghost’
st patrick guards the purgatory gates - Hamlet is changing his beliefs to catholicism meaning he believes that the ghost is telling the truth about his dads death
‘hic et ubique? ‘ here and everywhere the ghost is everywhere helps secure the oaths of his friends that they wont tell anyone ‘again upon my sword. swear upon my sword/ never to speak of this that you have heard’
in this case his friends are honest and do not tell anyone for the rest of the play. the cellarage scene with ghost helped achieve their oaths and honesty
‘were you not sent for? is it your own/ inclining?’
asks R+G explicitly if their real intentions are honest ‘come, come deal/ justly with me’
‘o jephthah, judge of israel, what a treasure hadst thou?”
Jephthah is an old testament figure who sacrificed his virigin daughter - proof that Hamlet overheard Polonius’ plan to ‘loose’ his daughter to him.
to polonius he thinks Hamlet is ‘still on my daughter’ as he mentions in the aside
‘o tis too true,/ How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!’
- admittance of guilt first time we hear him telling the truth and taking responsibility. feels guilty meaning not Amoral. seemingly wanting and trying to be good king
‘i do wish / that your good beauties be the happy cause/ of Hamlets wildness’
can be interpreted as genuine concern for Hamlet OR
hoping that he doesn’t know of her part in murder’
gives ophelia an oppurtunity like R+G ‘are you honest?/ are you fair?’
she doesn’t take the chance when he asks ‘where’s your father?’ she lies and says ‘at home, my lord’
‘you go not till i set you up a glass/ where you may see the inmost part of you’
saying that shes lying and hiding behind a glass. wanting her to speak her truth.
but after she says this she screams ‘help,ho!’ perhaps in fear that her lies and being a murder accomplice would be revealed in front of her son.
’ o hamlet speak no more./ Though turnst my very eyes into my soul / and there i see such black and grieved spots as will leave their tinct’
this could mean 1) she feels guilty of her treason and murder act
2) shes saying what he wants to hear in the exact wording so she doesnt die too
3) she feels guilty of marrying again
4) she feels guilty about how hamlet was raised as a mother feels bad
queen in her aside says that the truth always comes out
‘it spills itself in fearing to be spilt’
claudius allowing the truth to come out for laertes if it means keeping his throne
‘and where th’ offence is let the great axe fall.’
to thine own self be true
yet polonius isnt tru to himself- hypocritical
‘ i hold my duty as i hold my soul,
both to my king and my gracious lord
king has plan for laertes to kill hamlet
‘can you devise me?’ (conform to me)
‘ I will work him/ to an exploit, now ripe in my device’ - villian like has a master plan
‘and for his death no wind of blame shall breathe/ but even his mother shall uncharge the practice/ and call it accident’
