GERTRUDE    O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. HAMLET         O throw away the worser part of it And live the purer with the other half. Goodnight, but go not to my uncle’s bed; Assume a virtue if you have it not. That monster Custom, who all sense doth eat Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of […]

HAMLET         Confess yourself to heaven, Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come, And do not spread the compost on the weeds To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue, For in the fatness of these pursy times Virtue itself of Vice must pardon beg. Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.          (3.4.147-153) Hamlet—perhaps above all else—is taking the moral (very) high ground here, […]

HAMLET         My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time And makes as healthful music. It is not madness That I have uttered. Bring me to the test And I the matter will reword, which madness Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace Lay not that flattering unction to your soul That not your trespass but my madness speaks. It will but skin and film the […]

HAMLET         Why, look you there! Look how it steals away – My father in his habit as he lived. Look where he goes even now out at the portal! (Exit Ghost.) GERTRUDE    This is the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation ecstasy Is very cunning in.     (3.4.132-137) Look, look! says Hamlet, why, look you there! right THERE! can’t you see it, see HIM? Look how it […]

HAMLET         On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares, His form and cause conjoined preaching to stones Would make them capable. [to Ghost] Do not look upon me Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects! Then what I have to do Will want true colour, tears perchance for blood. GERTRUDE    To whom do you speak this? HAMLET         Do […]

GERTRUDE                Alas, how is’t with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy And with th’incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep, And as the sleeping soldiers in th’alarm Your bedded hair like life in excrements Start up and stand on end. O gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? (3.4.112-120) Gertrude’s terrified, […]

HAMLET         Do you not come your tardy son to chide That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by Th’important acting of your dread command? O say! GHOST            Do not forget! This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. But look, amazement on thy mother sits! O step between her and her fighting soul. Conceit in weakest bodies […]

HAMLET         A murderer and a villain, A slave that is not twentieth part the kith Of your precedent lord, a vice of kings, A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole And put it in his pocket, – GERTRUDE                No more! HAMLET                                 – a king of shreds and patches – Enter Ghost. Save me and hover o’er […]

HAMLET                                 Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty – GERTRUDE                            O speak to me no more! These words like daggers enter in my ears. No more, sweet Hamlet.       (3.4.89-94) Actually Hamlet was just pausing for breath, and he now returns to this verbal and moral assault with renewed vigour and […]

HAMLET                     Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax And melt in her own fire; proclaim no shame When the compulsive ardour gives the charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn And reason pardons will. GERTRUDE                O Hamlet, speak no more. Thou turn’st my very eyes into my soul And there I see such black and grained spots As will leave there their tinct.          (3.4.80-89) Hamlet […]