Hamlet quotes

‘Tis sweet and commendable in your nature,Hamlet, to give these mourning duties to your father,But you must know your father lost a father,That father lost, lost his, and the survivor boundIn filial obligation for some termTo do obsequious sorrow. Claudius; talking to Hamlet saying that he has to get over his grief of his father’s death because he has to face reality that everyone’s father dies.
Sleeping within my orchard,My custom always in the afternoon,Upon my secure hour thy uncle stoleWith juice of cursed hebona in a vial,And in the porches of my ear did pourThe leperous distilment… Ghost: saying how Hamlet’s uncle Claudius poured poison into his ear and killed him.
How all occasions do inform against me,And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,If his chief good and market of his timeBe but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. Hamlet realizes he needs to take actions for his revenge instead of stalling.
O speak to me no more.These words like daggers enter in my ears.No more, sweet Hamlet. Hamlet exposes Gertrude’s sins for leaving the old king for his brother, and she cries out fearing for her life.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!I took thee for thy better. Hamlet scolds Gertrude for going straight to Claudius after Hamlet’s death.
The play’s the thing,Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king. Hamlet schemes to design a play to reenact his father’s murder to see if Claudius will show any guilt.
It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain;No med’cine in the world can do thee good.In thee there is not half an hour’s life.The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,Unbated and envenomed. The foul practiceHath turned itself on me. Lo, here I lie,Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poisoned.I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame. Laertes: he says to Hamlet that he has been stabbed with a poisoned sword and his mother is poisoned, and that Claudius is the one to blame
O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,Or that the Everlasting had not fixedHis canon ‘gainst self-slaughter…. Hamlet is saying he wants to kill himself but God has a law against suicide
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. Polonius tells Laertes not to lend nor borrow money because when you lend to a friend you lose the money as well as the friendship. Tells him to be true to himself.
Now might I do it pat, now ‘a is a-praying.And now I’ll do’t. And so ‘a goes to heaven,And so am I revenged. That would be scanned.A villain kills my father, and for that I, his sole son, do this same villain, send to heaven. Hamlet thinks about killing Claudius while he is praying but then thinks again that he would be doing Claudius a favor by sending the villain to heaven.
…This to meIn dreadful secrecy impart they did,And I with them the third night kept the watch,Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,Form of the thing, each word made true and good,The apparition comes. I knew your father;These hands are not more like. Horatio tells Hamlet of the ghost that appeared to him, Marcellus and Barnardo. He says the ghost is very similar to the father of Hamlet.
There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’srue for you. And here’s some for me. We may call itherb of grace a Sundays. You must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give yousome violets, but they withered all when my father died. They say ‘a made a good end. Gives fennel and columbines to Gertrude (adultery) rue to Claudius (repentance) and a daisy (unhappy love) violets (flowers of faithfulness) dried up when Polonius died.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Gertrude is watching the play Hamlet organized. She believes the player queen is exaggerating the part when she says she will stay loyal to the king even if she be a widow. Showing guilt.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustainIf with too credent ear you list his songs,Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure openTo his unmaster’d importunity.Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,And keep you in the rear of your affectionOut of the shot and danger of desire Laertes telling Ophelia not to let Hamlet seduce her in anyway. He wants her to keep her love in control and not to fall victim to Hamlet’s ways.
Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellowof infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. Hamlet picks up Yorick’s skull and remembers him from his childhood. His mood swings from one of sarcasm to one very mournful.
To be, or not to be, that is the questionWhether ’tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing, end them. Hamlet contemplates whether it is nobler to put up with the nasty things life throws at you or to fight against the troubles by putting an end to them once and for all.
Have you eyes?Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,And batten on this moor? ha, have you eyes?You cannot call it love, for at your ageThe heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble,And waits upon the judgment, and what judgmentWould step from this to this? Do you have eyes? How could you leave the lofty heights of this man here and descend as low as this one? Ha! Do you have eyes? You cannot say you did it out of love, since at your age romantic passions have grown weak, and the heart obeys reason. But what reason could move you from this one to that one?
August 7, 2019