CLAUDIUS                  …’tis unmanly grief, It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, A heart unfortified, or mind impatient, An understanding simple and unschooled; 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?         (1.2.94-101) Claudius is battering away at his nephew: you’re behaving […]

CLAUDIUS      ’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 bound In filial obligation for some term To do obsequious sorrow; but to persever In obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness…  (1.2.87-94) Claudius meets Hamlet’s long howl of furious […]

HAMLET         ’Tis not alone my inky cloak, cold mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected haviour 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.        (1.2.77-86) […]

GERTRUDE     Thou knowst ’tis common all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity. HAMLET         Ay, madam, it is common. QUEEN                                               If it be Why seems it so particular with thee? HAMLET         ‘Seems’, madam – nay it is, I know not ‘seems’.       (1.2.72-6) Gertrude attempts a little conventional stoic, Christian consolation: thou knowst ’tis common all that lives […]

CLAUDIUS      But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son – HAMLET         A little more than kin, and less than kind. CLAUDIUS      How is it that the clouds still hang on you? HAMLET         Not so, my lord, I am too much in the son. GERTRUDE     Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever […]

CLAUDIUS      Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius? POLONIUS      He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave By laboursome petition, and at last Upon his will I sealed my hard consent. I do beseech you give him leave to go. CLAUDIUS      Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine And thy best graces spend […]

CLAUDIUS      The head is not more native to the heart, The hand more instrumental to the mouth, Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father. What wouldst thou have, Laertes? LAERTES                                My dread lord, Your leave and favour to return to France, From whence though willingly I came to Denmark To show my duty in your coronation, Yet now I […]

CLAUDIUS      Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty. VOLTEMAND / CORNELIUS In that and all things will we show our duty. CLAUDIUS      We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell. [ Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius.] And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you? You told us of some suit – what is’t, Laertes? You cannot speak of reason to the Dane And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, […]

CLAUDIUS      Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting, Thus much the business is: we have here writ To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras – Who impotent and bedrid scarcely hears Of this his nephew’s purpose – to suppress His further gait herein, in that the levies, The lists and full proportions are all made Out of his subject; and we here […]

CLAUDIUS      Nor have we herein barred Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair along. For all, our thanks. Now follows that you know: young Fortinbras, Holding a weak supposal of our worth Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death Our state to be disjoint and out of frame – Co-leagued with this dream of his advantage – He hath not failed to […]