Faculty of English

GERTRUDE    There is a willow grows askant the brook That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream. Therewith fantastic garlands did she make Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them. There on the pendent boughs her crownet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook.    (4.7.164-173) It’s the strangest speech, and in many ways I think the obvious, […]

CLAUDIUS                  But stay, what noise? Enter GERTRUDE. GERTRUDE    One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, So fast they follow. Your sister’s drowned, Laertes. LAERTES        Drowned! O, where? (4.7.160-163) It’s one of the best jump cuts, needle-scratches anywhere: but stay, what noise? Screaming, crying, from Gertrude, from someone else? Crackling radios, sirens? Do Claudius’s goons try to stop her coming in? Just when […]

CLAUDIUS                  Let’s further think of this, Weigh what convenience both of time and means May fit us to our shape. If this should fail And that our drift look through our bad performance ’Twere better not essayed. Therefore this project Should have a back or second that might hold If this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see: We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings – I ha’t! […]

LAERTES        I bought an unction of a mountebank So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, Collected from all simples that have virtue Under the moon, can save the thing from death That is but scratched withal. I’ll touch my point With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly It may be death.         (4.7.139-146) I bought an unction of a mountebank—a […]

CLAUDIUS                  He being remiss, Most generous and free from all contriving, Will not peruse the foils, so that with ease, Or with a little shuffling, you may choose A sword unbated and in a pass of practice Requite him for your father. LAERTES                    I will do’t. And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword. (4.7.132-138) He being remiss—and because Hamlet’s a bit of a dreamer, a bit casual (Claudius is back […]

CLAUDIUS      No place indeed should murder sanctuarize. Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes, Will you do this? Keep close within your chamber; Hamlet returned shall know you are come home; We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence And set a double varnish on the fame The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together And wager on your heads.    (4.7.125-132) No place indeed […]

CLAUDIUS                  That we would do We should do when we would, for this ‘would’ changes And hath abatements and delays as many As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents, And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift’s sigh That hurts by easing. But to the quick of th’ulcer – Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake To show yourself in deed your father’s […]

CLAUDIUS      Not that I think you did not love your father But that I know love is begun by time And that I see in passages of proof Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it, And nothing is at a like goodness still, […]

CLAUDIUS      Now out of this – LAERTES                    What out of this, my lord? CLAUDIUS      Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart? LAERTES                    Why ask you this?     (4.7.104-107) Now out of this—and it seems that Claudius is finally going to ask Laertes to do […]

LAERTES                    A Norman was’t? CLAUDIUS      A Norman. LAERTES                    Upon my life, Lamord! CLAUDIUS                                          The very same. LAERTES        I know him well. He is the brooch, indeed, And gem of all the nation. CLAUDIUS      He made confession of you And gave you such a masterly report For art and exercise in your defence, And for your rapier most especial, That he cried out ’twould be […]