Notes and Quotes




Act 1, Scene 1
Marcellus says to Barnardo: “Horatio says [the
ghost] ‘tis but our fantasy…” This adheres to the
Protestant view that there were no ghosts. These
were only visions, demons sent to lure others to
their death – What are ghosts in this play…an
essential question.
Old Hamlet is dressed as a warrior (49-50),
Young Hamlet is dressed in his “inky cloak”.
Foreshadowing comes early as Horatio says, “This
bodes some strange eruption to our state” (I.i.72)


Marcellus, Barnardo, and Horatio, in their
discourse with one another, give the reader a
sense of paranoia. Denmark is in disrepair,
and they hardly recognize one another in the
dark.
In this act, the reader finds that Denmark has
“old beef” with the Fortinbras family of
Norway. The people make ready for war, “at
least the whisper goes so” (Horatio I.i.82)




In Horatio’s lines surrounding 150, we find
that the ghost disappears with the breaking
day, evidence that he is stuck in a state of
limbo. (Catholic Philosophy)
Act 1, Scene 2
Claudius marries his former sister-in-law,
which he calls his “sometime sister”.
“Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state,”
(Claudius’ formal speech to open Act II).
Shows a double meaning.




Hamlet says to Claudius, “A little more than
king and less than kind” (I.ii.65). Read sidenote, page 66)
And at line 67, “No so much, my lord; I am
too much in the sun (son).”
Claudius mentions at line 73, “all that lives
must die.”
Hamlet calls Gertrude “cold”. Do you find this
to be true?



In I.ii.78-87, Hamlet admits for the first time
he does not have the words to express his
feelings. “That can denote me truly” (69).
Shortly following, Claudius oddly speaks
about the ordinariness of death. “For what we
know must be and is as common / As any the
most vulgar thing to sense. / Why should we
in our peevish opposition / Take it to heart?
Line 105: Reference to Cain and Abel, ironic
because the brother-homocide.




Note that near line 30, Hamlet considers
suicide, but decides it is not an option
because of religious reasons.
Hamlet begins to show his “modern” or
inward-philosophical views in this same
soliloquy. “How weary, stale, flat, and
unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this
world!
“Frailty, thy name is woman!”
“My father’s brother, but no more like my
father / Than I to Hercules.”






“O most wicked speed, to post / With sudden
dexterity to incestuous sheets!”
“It is not nor it cannot come to good—”
Hamlet ends the scene with a lesson to
impart: “Foul deeds will rise, / Though all the
earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes” (255).
Act 1, Scene III
Laertes to Ophelia, lines 10-14, Page 87.
About Hamlet: “His greatness weighed, his
will is not his own.”





Throughout Laertes speech at the beginning
of scene III, he compares love to military
battle and maneuvering.
He tells Ophelia that Hamlet only wants her
“chastity”.
Line 108 (page 95). “You’ll tender me a fool.”
Act I, Scene IV
We find early on that Claudius is a reveler: “It
is a custom / More honored in the breach
than the observance.”




Note 9, Page 100
Hamlet, lines 23-26: “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)…”
Line 36: One evil will outweigh any good one
can do (paraphrase).
Hamlet, lines 65-67: “I do not set my life at a
pin’s fee, / And for my soul – what can it do
to that, / Being a thing immortal as itself?





“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”
(Marcellus)
Act I, Scene V
Hamlet speaks a tremendous irony: “I, with
wings as swift / As meditation or the
thoughts of love, / May sweep to my
revenge.”
Ghost: “A serpent stung me.”
Hamlet: “O my prophetic soul!”




In Act I, scene V, we find that Old Hamlet is
ticked at Gertrude. (Line 50ish)
A great deal of pressure is applied to Hamlet:
“Let not the royal bed of Denmark be / A
couch for luxury (lust) and damned incest.”
Old Hamlet is sent to death without
forgiveness for his sins…or so he
says…which would follow the Catholic ideals.
Does Hamlet say he will forget school? Line
100?




“That one may smile, and smile, and be a
villain” –Hamlet.
An ironic sidenote – Hamlet breaks Polonius’
long-winded advice to Laertes. He tells others
secrets and relies on other men to do right.
Is Polonius a wise sage, or an ass?
“The time is out of joint”




Polonius advises Reynaldo to spy on Laertes.
His advice to Reynaldo is convoluted,
contradictory, and hard to follow.
Essentially, Polonius wants Reynaldo to talk
poorly about Laertes to L’s new friends. If
they agree, or dispute what Reynaldo says,
the true nature of L’s character will be
revealed.
“They may seem taints of libertry”





Act II is when Hamlet begins to “put on his
madness”
Why is Ophelia frantic with Polonius in Act II?
Ophelia of Hamlet: “…his stockings fouled, /
Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle…”
This is an image of Hamlet as prisoner, with
shackles about his feet.
She also says, “As if he had been loosed out
of Hell.”




Consider madness in this play as a device or
motif.
In Act II, Scene I, Polonius gives many ironic
comments as to the intuition of others.
“By Heaven, it is as proper to our age / To
cast beyond ourselves in opinions / As it is
common for the younger sort / To lack
discretion.”
Polonius decides to go to Claudius and
Gertrude.



A solution is brought to the Fortinbras
problem.
Again, ironically, Polonius utters this: “Since
brevity is the soul of wit / and tediousness
the limb of outward flourishes / I will be
brief…your son is mad.”
HAMLET’S LETTER TO OPHELIA page 147 and
sidenote.



Polonius then plans to have Hamlet interact
with Ophelia, while he (Polonius) hides behind
the “arras” or curtain.
In Act II, Scene II, there is more evidence of
Hamlet’s modernity: “To be honest, as this
world goes, is to be one man pricked out of
ten thousand.”
Notice he speaks not in verse.
Discuss Hamlet’s madness and pointed jabs
at Polonius on page 156-157.






What is with the extended sex joke in Act II,
Scene II?
Why call fortune a strumpet?
Rosencrantz: “None, my lord, but the world’s
grown honest.:
Hamlet: “The doomsday is near.”
“He that plays the king shall be welcome; his
majesty shall have tribute on me.”
Rosencrantz: “For they say an old man is
twice a child.”

Hamlet’s allusion to ballads shows his
connection with the common man, or the
vulgar. Something, that as a prince, would
have annoyed his aristocratic parents.
Reciting a ballad is also a way of saying
something without having to take full
responsibility for it.




Hamlet says he will ask the theatre troop to
“play something like the murder of my
father.”
He says, the spirit he saw “may be a devil”
and this theatre trick will help him to be sure
of Claudius deed. Line 515.
“Must, like a whore, I unpack my heart with
words / And fall a-cursing like a very drab, a
Stallion!”
Hamlet finds himself a coward. True?




Scene I
Guildenstern say, “…but with crafty madness
keeps aloof…” (the word crafty used this way
meaning feigned)
An irony in Claudius’ dialogue near line 25.
He (Claudius) encourages Hamlet to pursue
his delight of plays, though it is this playing
that will incriminate Claudius.
Shortly following, Claudius and Gertrude
arrange the “chance meeting” with Ophelia.



Gertrude says, “I do wish / That your good
beauties be the happy cause / Of Hamlet’s
wildness.”
At line 45 Polonius speaks a biting truth: “We
are oft to blame in this; / ‘Tis too much
proved, that with devotion’s visage / And
pious action do we sugar o’er / The devil
himself.”
Keep this in mind when Claudius is trying to
pray later in the act.



In an aside Claudius replies, “How smart a
lash that speech doth give my conscience.”
In lines 50-53ish, Claudius extends a
metaphor for his guilt. He basically compares
a harlot (prostitute) covering her face with
makeup to his covering up of evils with a
falsified image.
This signifies another motif in the play of
facades, or false fronts. Hamlet’s madness for
example, or even Polonius’ behind the scenes
meddling.



Line 55 marks the beginning of Hamlet’s
most famous speech. “To be, or not to be?”
In this passage Hamlet speaks many times
about “fortune”. This word continues to
surface many times in the play.
Hamlet makes death seem innocuous; it is no
worse than sleep: “To die, to sleep – No more
– and by a sleep to say we end / The
heartache and the thousand natural shocks /
That flesh is heir to…”




Hamlet continues to consider suicide
throughout this speech as he does the entire
play.
“The insolence of office…”
“The patient merit of th’ unworthy takes…”
“To grunt and sweat under a weary life, / But
that the dread of something after death, /
That undiscovered country from whose bourn
/ No traveler returns…” (Line 76)




Line 82 and following:
“Thus conscience does make a coward of us
all, / And thus the native hue of resolution is
sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, /
And enterprises of great pitch and moment /
With this regard their currents turn awry /
And lose the name of action.”
Line 95: Hamlet denies to Ophelia that he
ever loved her.
Line 110?




Line 123: “I am very proud, revengeful,
ambitious, with more offenses at my beck
than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to
act them in.”
Line 129: Does Hamlet realize Polonius is
watching?
Hamlet to Ophelia: “…if thou wilt needs
marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well
enough what monsters you make of them. To
a nunnery go…”
Cuckold? Reference to G’trude?




“God has given you one face and you make
yourselves another.”
Ophelia calls Hamlet “Th’ observed of all
observers…”
She means here that he is the “object of every
courtiers attention.” It’s an irony, however,
because of how many people are marking his
behavior.
Claudius and Polonius decide to send Hamlet
to England for a change of scenery.



Polonius, line 175: “But yet do I believe / The
origin and commencement of his grief /
Sprung from neglected love.”
Lines near 185: Polonius decides to meddle
one last time before Hamlet goes to England.
He will hide in Gertrude’s room behind the
arras and listen to the conversation.
This decision ultimately kills him.





Scene II
This scene is devoted to the playing of The
Mousetrap.
Line 20…a prime example of meta-drama.
These lines discuss the conventions of drama
and its effect, which is rather ironic, seeing as
the comment is within a drama.
Page 201
The disapproval of one judicious person
outweighs the approval of many
undiscriminating people.








Hamlet admires Horatio.
“Give me that man / That is not passion’s
slave, and I will wear him / In my heart’s core,
ay, in my heart of heart / As I do thee.”
Line 78: “It is a damned ghost”
Line 88: “How fares our cousin Hamlet?”
Fares here can mean to “eat”.
Next line there is a pun on air/heir.
Line 100: Julius Caesar allusion/joke.
Hamlet begins to be profane at line 105.


At line 140 Ophelia, referring to the prologue
of the play says, “Tis brief, my lord.” Hamlet
responds, “ As woman’s love.” I think this
could be a reference to either Gertrude or
Ophelia.
Player Queen: “Where love is great, the littlest
doubts are fear; / Where little fears great,
great love grows there.”




As the play within a play begins, there is
biting commentary of Gertrude and Claudius’
actions.
Line 172: “A second time I kill my husband
dead / When second husband kisses me in
bed.”
“Purpose is but the slave to memory, / Of
violent birth but poor validity, / Which now,
like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree…”
Above is an ironic comment on Hamlet’s
behavior, an unintended consequence surely.







“Our thoughts are ours, their ends (outcomes)
none of our own.”
“Your majesty and we that have free souls, it
touches not.” – Hamlet, 227.
Sex joke, 235.
At line 250, just after the player king is
poisoned.
Line 260?
Line 287… “purgation”
The metaphor of the flute…line 345




At the end of scene II, Hamlet vows no
violence to his mother (probably because of
the ghost’s wishes), though his soul would
like to.
Scene III
An essential question: What is the role of
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the play?
Rosencrantz speaks some unknowingly wise
words: “The cess of majesty / Dies not alone,
but, like a gulf, doth draw / What’s near it
with it.”







Line 37: passing Biblical allusion.
During his soliloquy, starting at line 35,
Claudius has a moral dilemma, deciding
whether or not is fitting for him to pray.
He begs the question, Why does mercy exist?
He also wonders if one can be absolved of
sins if they still retain the spoils of the act.
“May one be pardoned and retain the
offense?” Line 56.
“There is no shuffling (evasion)”
“Bow stubborn knee” – Line 70




Before going to his mother’s room, Hamlet
decides to kill Claudius. However, when he
gets there Claudius appears to be praying.
Hamlet chooses not to kill him because he
could then go to Heaven. Hamlet wants to kill
him when he is doing something “bad”.
Hamlet said his father did not get absolved
before his death, and therefore, neither shall
Claudius.
Lines 97-98…Was Claudius unable to pray?
Hamlet could have killed him!





Scene IV
In his mother’s chamber, Hamlet chides his
mother.
He also kills Polonius with little or no
remorse.
It takes Hamlet a long time to get to the point
with his mother, much like Polonius early
on…Hint.
Hamlet suggests that Gertrude must have
been deprived of her senses to marry
Claudius after having seen Old Hamlet.





Hamlet’s diction is biting: “In the rank sweat
of [a greasy] bed.” Yuck.
The ghost of Old Hamlet appears to Hamlet,
yet Gertrude cannot see it.
Line 141: It is not madness that I have
uttered.”
Hamlet, when he wants someone to believe
him, can’t get them to because of his feigned
madness throughout. BACKFIRE.
Line 152: Garden reference.



Shakespeare renounces “habit” which many
authors do from time to time.
Hamlet acknowledges in the scene that he
cannot trust R & G.
To end the scene, Hamlet ironically calls
Polonius a “counselor”.