Key Quotes From Hamlet – Acts 4 and 5 Speaker: ___________________________________ His liberty is full of threats to all… Explanation: ____________________________________________________________________________________ Importance: ____________________________________________________________________________________ Speaker: ___________________________________ Explanation: ________________________________ Importance: ________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ …[a sponge] that soaks up the king’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities: but such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape doth nuts, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. Speaker: ___________________________________ A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a Explanation: ________________________________ king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. Importance: ____________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Speaker: ___________________________________ …Do it England; Explanation: ________________________________ For like the hectic in my blood he rages, Importance: ________________________________ And thou must cure me… ___________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ Speaker: ___________________________________ Explanation: ________________________________ Importance: ________________________________ ___________________________________________ …he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason To fust in us unused. Speaker: ___________________________________ Explanation: ________________________________ Importance: ________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Witness this army, of such mass and charge, Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff’d Makes mouths of the invisible event, Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, Even for an eggshell…. Speaker: ____________________________________ Explanation: ________________________________ Importance: ________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ …How stand I then, That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep, while to my shame I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men, That for a fantasy an trick of fame Go to their graves like beds… Speaker: ___________________________________ …O, from this time forth, Explanation: ________________________________ My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! Importance: ____________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Speaker: ___________________________________ Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss… Explanation: ____________________________________________________________________________________ Importance: ____________________________________________________________________________________ Speaker: ___________________________________ Explanation: ________________________________ Importance: ________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Quoth she, before you tumbled me, You promised me to wed. He answers: So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun, And thou hadst not come to my bed. Speaker: ___________________________________ …poor Ophelia, Explanation: ________________________________ Divided from herself and her fair judgment, Importance: _________________________________ Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Speaker: ___________________________________ Explanation: ________________________________ Importance: _________________________________ _____________________________________________ Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person: There’s such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would, Acts little of his will. Speaker: ___________________________________ Explanation: ________________________________ Importance: _________________________________ _____________________________________________ How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with; To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation… Speaker: ___________________________________ O heavens! Is’t possible a young maid’s wits Explanation: ________________________________ Should be as mortal as an old man’s life? Importance: ____________________________________________________________________________________ Speaker: ___________________________________ Explanation: ________________________________ Importance: _________________________________ High and mighty, You shall know, I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes… Speaker: ___________________________________ …To cut his throat i’ the church. Explanation: ____________________________________________________________________________________ Importance: ____________________________________________________________________________________ Speaker: ___________________________________ Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not Explanation: ________________________________ been a gentlewoman, she would have been buried Importance: ________________________________ out o’ Christian burial. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Speaker: _____________________________________ Explanation: _________________________________ Importance: __________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ Dos’t thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion I’ the earth?... To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole? Speaker: ___________________________________ Explanation: ________________________________ Importance: _________________________________ I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum…. Speaker: ___________________________________ Why, man, they did make love to this employment; Explanation: ________________________________ They are not near my conscience… Importance: ____________________________________________________________________________________ Speaker: ___________________________________ Explanation: ________________________________ Importance: ________________________________ ____________________________________________ But I am very sorry, good Horatio, That to Laertes I forgot myself; For by the image of my cause, I see The portraiture of his: I’ll court his favours… Speaker: ____________________________________ Explanation: _________________________________ Importance: _________________________________ _____________________________________________ Not a whit; we defy augury: there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come… Let be. Speaker: ____________________________________ I am more an antique Roman than a Dane… Explanation: ____________________________________________________________________________________ Importance: ____________________________________________________________________________________