Faculty of English

GERTRUDE     Did he receive you well? ROSENCRANTZ          Most like a gentleman. GUILDENSTERN        But with much forcing of his disposition. ROSENCRANTZ          Niggard of question, but of our demands Most free in his reply. GERTRUDE     Did you assay him to any pastime? ROSENCRANTZ          Madam, it so fell out that certain players We o’erraught on the way. Of these we told him And there did […]

Enter CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN [and] LORDS. CLAUDIUS      And can you by no drift of conference Get from him why he puts on this confusion, Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy? ROSENCRANTZ          He does confess he feels himself distracted But from what cause ’a will by no means speak. GUILDENSTERN        Nor do we find him forward to be sounded But with a crafty madness keeps aloof When […]

HAMLET         The spirit that I have seen May be a devil, and the devil hath power T’assume a pleasing shape. Yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me! I’ll have grounds More relative than this. The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King. (Exit.)         […]

HAMLET                     Hum, I have heard That guilty creatures sitting at a play Have by the very cunning of the scene Been struck so to the soul that presently They have proclaimed their malefactions. For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players Play something like the murder of my father Before mine uncle. I’ll […]

HAMLET                     For it cannot be But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall To make oppression bitter, or ere this I should ha’ fatted all the region kites With this slave’s offal – bloody, bawdy villain, Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain. Why, what an ass am I: this is most brave, That I, the son of a dear murdered, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must like a whore unpack my heart with words And […]

HAMLET                                 Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, And can say nothing. No, not for a king Upon whose property and most dear life A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across, Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face, Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i’th’ throat As deep as to […]

HAMLET         What’s Hecuba to him, or he to her, That he should weep for her? What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, Make mad the guilty and appal the free, Confound the ignorant and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears. (2.2.494-501) I mean, […]

HAMLET                     Now I am alone. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit That from her working all the visage wanned – Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit – and […]

POLONIUS      Come, sirs. HAMLET         Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow. [aside to First Player] Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play The Murder of Gonzago? 1 PLAYER       Ay, my lord. HAMLET         We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for need study a speech of some dozen lines, or sixteen lines, which I […]

HAMLET         ’Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest of this soon. [to Polonius] Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time: after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than […]