CLAUDIUS      Haply the seas and countries different With variable objects shall expel This something-settled matter in his heart Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus From fashion of himself. What think you on’t? POLONIUS      It shall do well. But yet do I believe The origin and commencement of his grief Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia? You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said […]

CLAUDIUS      Love! His affections do not that way tend. Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little, Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul O’er which his melancholy sits on brood And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose Will be some danger – which for to prevent I have in quick determination Thus set it down. He shall with speed to England […]

OPHELIA        O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s eye, tongue, sword, Th’ expectation and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, Th’observed of all observers, quite, quite down. And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That sucked the honey of his musicked vows, Now see what noble and most sovereign reason Like sweet bells jangled out of time and harsh – That […]

OPHELIA        [aside] Heavenly powers restore him. HAMLET         I have heard of your paintings well enough. God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble and you lisp, you nickname God’s creatures and make your wantonness ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t. It hath made me mad. I say […]

HAMLET         Where’s your father? OPHELIA        At home, my lord. HAMLET         Let the doors be shut upon him that he may play the fool nowhere but in’s own house. Farewell. OPHELIA        [aside] O help him, you sweet heavens! HAMLET         If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as […]

HAMLET         Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to […]

HAMLET         I did love you once. OPHELIA        Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. HAMLET         You should not have believed me. For virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not. OPHELIA        I was the more deceived.      (3.1.114-119) Oooof. The pain here, lashing out, Hamlet being […]

HAMLET         Ha! Ha! Are you honest? OPHELIA        My lord? HAMLET         Are you fair? OPHELIA        What means your lordship? HAMLET         That if you be honest and fair you should admit no discourse to your beauty. OPHELIA        Could Beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with Honesty? HAMLET         Ay, truly. For the power of Beauty will sooner […]

OPHELIA        My honoured lord, you know right well you did, And with them words of so sweet breath composed As made these things more rich. Their perfume lost, Take these again, for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord.          (3.1.96-101) Ophelia has to plough on, she’s started this painful thing, the only way is through. And she can be angry—stop […]

HAMLET                     Soft you now, The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered. OPHELIA                    Good my lord, How does your honour for this many a day? HAMLET         I humbly thank you, well. OPHELIA        My lord, I have remembrances of yours That I have longed long to redeliver. I pray you now receive them. HAMLET         No, not I. I never gave you aught.    […]