Faculty of English

CLAUDIUS      A very ribbon in the cap of youth. Yet needful too, for youth no less becomes The light and careless livery that it wears Than settled age his sables and his weeds Importing health and graveness. Two months since Here was a gentleman of Normandy – I have seen myself, and served against, the French And they can well on horseback, but this gallant Had witchcraft in’t; he grew unto his seat And to such […]

CLAUDIUS                              It falls right. You have been talked of since your travel much, And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality Wherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts Did not together pluck such envy from him As did that one, and that in my regard Of the unworthiest siege. LAERTES                    What part is that, my […]

CLAUDIUS      To thine own peace. If he be now returned As checking at his voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it, I will work him To an exploit, now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but fall. And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe But even his mother shall uncharge […]

LAERTES        Know you the hand? CLAUDIUS                  ’Tis Hamlet’s character. ‘Naked’, And in a postscript here he says ‘alone’. Can you devise me? LAERTES        I am lost in it, my lord, but let him come. It warms the very sickness in my heart That I live and tell him to his teeth ‘Thus didst thou.’ CLAUDIUS                  If it be so, Laertes – As how should it be so, […]

MESSENGER  These to your majesty, this to the Queen. CLAUDIUS      From Hamlet! Who brought them? MESSENGER  Sailors, my lord, they say. I saw them not. They were given me by Claudio. He received them Of him that brought them. CLAUDIUS      Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us. [Exit Messenger.] [Reads.]          High and mighty. You shall know I am set […]

LAERTES        And so have I a noble father lost, A sister driven into desperate terms Whose worth, if praises may go back again, Stood challenger on mount of all the age For her perfections. But my revenge will come. CLAUDIUS      Break not your sleeps for that; you must not think That we are made of stuff so flat and dull That we […]

CLAUDIUS      The other motive Why to a public count I might not go Is the great love the general gender bear him, Who, dipping all his faults in their affection, Work like the spring that turneth wood to stone, Convert his gyves to graces, so that my arrows, Too slightly timbered for so loud a wind, Would have reverted to my bow again But not where I have aimed them.   (4.7.17-25) This is […]

CLAUDIUS      O, for two special reasons Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed But yet to me they’re strong. The Queen his mother Lives almost by his looks and for myself, My virtue or my plague, be it either which, She is so conjunct to my life and soul That as the star moves not but in his sphere I could not but by her.           […]

Enter CLAUDIUS and LAERTES. CLAUDIUS      Now must your conscience my acquittance seal And you must put me in your heart for friend Sith you have heard and with a knowing ear That he which hath your noble father slain Pursued my life. LAERTES                    It well appears. But tell me Why you proceed not against these feats So criminal and so capital in nature As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else, You […]

HORATIO [Reads.] Let the King have the letters I have sent, and repair thou to me with as much speed as thou wouldest fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb. Yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee […]