ACT I

FRANCISCO (Sc. 1 Ln 8)
For this relief much thanks. Tis bitter cold
And I am sick at heart.

Notes/Responses: On this side write down

ContextWhat it saysPuns
MetaphorsImages--Themes

HORATIO (Sc. 1, Ln. 55-57)

What art thou that usurpst this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? By heaven, I charge thee,
speak.
HAMLET (Sc. 2, Ln. 68)
A little more than kin and less than kind.
HAMLET (Sc. 2, Ln. 79-89)
Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not
seems.
Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief
That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passes show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
KING (Sc. 2 Ln. 105-110)
Fie, tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to Nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died today,
This must be so.
HAMLET (Sc. 2, Ln. 133-138)
O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon gainst self slaughter!
O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world! . . .
. . . Frailty thy name is woman!
Laertes (Sc 3 Ln 33-47)
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd importunity.Fear it, Ophelia
fear it, my dear sister,
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.

Here, Hamlet responds to his mothers use

of seems as if she meant that he was only
pretending grief.
He says: all the outward signs of grief-black clothes, tears, sighs, sad facecan be faked,
but I have something inside of me that is very real.
Word play (pun): seems-- to appear vs. to
pretend.
Theme: This passage introduces the
important idea of being vs. seeming, and compares
someone in mourning to an actor playing a part.
How the outer person compares and contrasts with
the inner person is a key issue in the play. Acting
(playing) is a key image used to convey this theme.

Contagious blastments are most imminent.

Be wary then; best safety lies in fear:
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
OPHELIA (Sc. 3, Ln. 49-55)
I shall the effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede.
POLONIUS (Sc. 3, Ln. 81-86)
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
HAMLET
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth--wherein they are not
guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin-By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners, that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,-Their virtues else--be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo-Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault: the dram of evil
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal.
MARCELLUS (Sc. 5, Ln. 100)
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

GHOST (Sc. 5, Ln. 89-98)

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsomever thou pursues this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.
The glowworm shows the matin to be near
And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.

HAMLET
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
HAMLET (Sc. 5, Ln. 210-211)
The time is out of joint. O cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right!

ACT II
QUEEN GERTRUDE
More matter, with less art.
POLONIUS
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog,
being a god kissing carrion,--Have you a
daughter?
POLONIUS
I have, my lord.
HAMLET
Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a
blessing: but, as your daughter may conceive.
Friend, look to 't.
POLONIUS (Sc. 2, Ln. 222)
Though this be madness, yet there is method
int.

HAMLET (Sc. 2, Ln. 268-271)

Why, then, tis none to you, for there is
nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it
so. To me, it is a prison.
HAMLET (Sc. 2, Ln. 273-275)
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and
count myself a king of infinite space, were it not
that I have bad dreams.
HAMLET (Sc. 2, Ln. 318-332)
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all
my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises, and,
indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition
that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a
sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy,
the air, look you, this brave oerhanging
firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with
golden firewhy it appeareth nothing to me but
a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
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
animalsand yet, to me, what is this
quintessence of dust?
HAMLET (Sc. 2, Ln. 577- 585)
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceitand all for nothing!
For Hecuba
HAMLET (Sc. 2, Ln. 627-634)
The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil, and the devil hath power
T assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. Ill have grounds
More relative than this. The plays the thing
Wherein Ill catch the conscience of the King.