HORATIO        So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t. HAMLET         They are not near my conscience. Their defeat Does by their own insinuation grow. ’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites. HORATIO                    Why, what a king is this!       (5.2.56-61) Horatio’s oddly euphemistic, even evasive, at least to modern ears: so Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t. That is, you […]

HORATIO        How was this sealed? HAMLET         Why even in that was heaven ordinant: I had my father’s signet in my purse – Which was the model of that Danish seal – Folded the writ up in the form of th’other, Subscribed it, gave’t th’impression, placed it safely, The changeling never known. Now the next day Was our sea-fight, and what to this was sequent Thou knowest already.          (5.2.47-55) How was this sealed? Horatio’s asking the question […]

HAMLET                     … wilt thou know Th’effect of what I wrote? HORATIO                    Ay, good my lord. HAMLET         An earnest conjuration from the King, As England was his faithful tributary, As love between them like the palm might flourish, As peace should still her wheaten garland wear And stand a comma ’tween their amities, And many such like ‘as’, sir, of great charge, That on the view and knowing of these contents, Without debatement further more or […]

HORATIO                                Is’t possible? HAMLET         Here’s the commission; read it at more leisure. But wilt thou hear now how I did proceed? HORATIO        I beseech you. HAMLET         Being thus benetted round with villains, Or I could make a prologue to my brains They had begun the play. I sat me down, Devised a new commission, wrote it fair – I once did hold it as […]

HAMLET         Up from my cabin, My sea-gown scarfed about me, in the dark Groped I to find out them, had my desire, Fingered their packet, and in fine withdrew To mine own room again, making so bold, My fears forgetting manners, to unfold Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio, A royal knavery, an exact command (Larded with many several sorts of reasons Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s too) With – ho! – such […]

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO. HAMLET         So much for this, sir. Now shall you see the other: You do remember all the circumstance? HORATIO        Remember it, my lord? HAMLET         Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly – And praised be rashness for it – let us know Our indiscretion sometime serves us well When our deep plots do fall – and […]

CLAUDIUS      I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him. (Exit Horatio.) [aside to Laertes] Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech, We’ll put the matter to the present push. – Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son. This grave shall have a living monument. An hour of quiet thereby shall we see; Till then in patience our proceeding be. (Exeunt.) (5.1.282-288) Claudius has […]

GERTRUDE                 This is mere madness, And thus awhile the fit will work on him. Anon, as patient as the female dove When that her golden couplets are disclosed, His silence will sit drooping. HAMLET                     Hear you, sir, What is the reason that you use me thus? I loved you ever – but it is no matter. Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will […]

HAMLET         ’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do. Woul’t weep, woul’t fight, woul’t fast, woul’t tear thyself, Woul’t drink up eisel, eat a crocodile? I’ll do’t. Dost come here to whine, To outface me with leaping in her grave? Be buried quick with her, and so will I. And if thou prate of mountains let them throw Millions of acres on us till our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart. Nay, an thou’lt mouth, […]

HAMLET         I loved Ophelia – forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her? CLAUDIUS      O, he is mad, Laertes. GERTRUDE     For love of God, forbear him.            (5.1.258-262) On the page, especially, it’s the sheer narcissism that comes across, look at Hamlet, making it all about him […]