ACTION VS INACTION:
• ' 'Tis here.' (Said by Barnardo and Horatio, pg 191)
• ' 'Tis gone.' (Marcellus, pg 192)
• 'The spirit dumb to us will speak to him.' (Horatio, pg 194)
Hamlet is the 'right' person.
• 'Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine / And thy best graces spend it at thy will / But
now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son' (Claudius, pg 199)
Time is Laertes -> as though time is something he can control, do some people have more control
than others? Only now turns to Hamlet. Hamlet is immediately identified by familial connections
which necessitate his actions. Stark juxtaposition between Laertes and Hamlet. Duality of
Hamlet's identity, not singularity. He is identified in relation to Claudius -> molding.
• 'I do not set my life at a pin's fee' (Hamlet, pg 238)
Doesn't value his life anyway so will follow ghost regardless of danger
• 'My fate cries out / And makes each petty artery in this body / As hardy as the Nemean lion's
nerve.' (Hamlet, 239)
• 'Heaven will direct it.' 'Nay, let's follow him.' (Horatio and Marcellus, pg 240)
Two ways to respond to tragedy -> Instrument and agent.
• 'Haste me to know ’t, that I, with wings as swift / As meditation or the thoughts of love /
May sweep to my revenge.' (Hamlet, pg 243)
Lexical set of words to do with speed. Hamlet determined to get revenge as quickly as possible ->
impulse will be flattened as Hamlet starts reckoning with the demands and moral implications of
revenge. This is the bound hamlet not thinking of any wider issues.
• 'I find thee apt' (Ghost to Hamlet, pg 243)
• 'howsomever' (Ghost, pg 248)
• 'The time is out of joint; O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right!' / Nay, come,
let's go together' (Hamlet, pg 257)
Singularity vs team work. Parallel between agency and instrument. Hamlet's duty as a revenger.
Natural order disturbed.
• 'Call me what instrument you will, though you fret me you cannot play upon me.' (Hamlet,
pg 353)
Agent vs instrument. Can produce a certain emotion but it won't necessarily produce an action
they want. You can assign me a role but I won't fulfil it
• 'My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent' (Claudius, pg 359)
• 'What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me - Help, ho!'…..'How now! A rat! Dead for a
ducat, dead!' 3.4
Impulsivity, arras, theatricality. Polonius has violated the privacy of the moment -> no matter
who they are rat -> polonius has taken role of audience, hamlet has broken 4th wall, theatre can
transcend barriers
• 'What hast thou done?' 'I know not. Is it the King?' 'O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!'
'A bloody deed - almost as bad, good mother, / As kill a king and marry with his brother' 3.4
Hamlet 'knows not' -> impulsivity only so he doesn't actually have to claim actions?
• 'Do it, England! / For like the hectic in my blood he rages / And thou must cure me. Till I
know 'tis done, / Howe'ver my haps my joys will ne'er begin' King, 4.3
• 'How all occasions do inform against me / And spur my dull revenge' Hamlet, 4.4, other
things got in the way
• 'O, from this time forth / My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.' Hamlet, 4.4, thoughts
previously have not been bloody, words that sound so decisive yet are so empty -> goes to
England in next scene -> supposed to believe theres an imminent action yet he won't be on
stage
,• 'O thou vile king' Laertes, 4.5, Tension is palpable as Hamlet's just left, Irony is that this is
what hamlet should be doing but wrong person, hamlet never addressed Claudius so
directly, contrast to how polite he and his father were to the king before
• 'I'll not be juggled with. To hell allegiance, vows to the blackest devil, Conscience and grace
to the profoundest put. I dare damnation' Laertes, 4.5 condemning because he's got the
wrong person? Explaining / celebrating hamlet's moralising
• 'Let come what comes' echoes 'let be'
• 'That we would do we should do when we would, for this 'would' changes / And hath
abatements and delays as many' -> King, 4.7, identity, if you don't act now you won't be able
to do it later -> ghost leaves it to 'howsoever', King instructs
• 'What would you undertake / To show yourself in deed your father's son / More than in
words?' King to Laertes 4.7
• 'To cut his throat I'th church' Laertes
• 'No place indeed should murder sanctuarize. Revenge should have no bounds. But good
Laertes, / Will you do this?' King to Laertes, ideal of revenge, element of sacrilege, Hamlet is
bound in a nutshell
• 'A sword unbated and in a pass of practice / Requite him for your father.' Claudius ,4.7 ,
revenger needs instruction
• 'I will do't. / And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword' -> in order to go from 'would' to 'will'
Laertes gets something hamlet didn't receive, instruction.
• 'I ha't ' Claudius, 4.7, features of a soliloquy but two are on stage
• 'I'll have preferred him A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping, if he by chance escape
your venomed stuck, Our purpose may hold there. But stay, what noise?' Claudius, 4.7, right
before Gertrude enters, proleptic irony, queen enters right after talk about chalice, C has
inadvertently plotted Queen's death
• 'Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, / And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet / It is
our trick. Nature her custom holds, / Let shame say what it will. [wheeps] When these are
gone, / The woman will be out' Laertes, 4.7, female qualities are what prevents action, eg
hamlets moralising
• 'Gertrude, do not drink.'
• 'I will, my Lord. I pray you pardon me.' King and Gertrude, 5.2, Gertrude is a casualty of a
scheme devised by the very man who should have been able to protect her, why does she
defy Claudius. Gertrude in many ways sacrifices herself for hamlet
• 'And yet it is almost against my conscience.' Laertes, 5.2, doesn't embrace the dilemma
• 'I am justly killed with mine own treachery.' Laertes, 5.2, who is 'justly' killed in this final
scene
• 'O villainy, ho! Let the door be locked. Treachery! Seek it out.' Hamlet, 5.2,
• 'It is here, Hamlet, thou art slain. / No medicine in the world can do thee good' Laertes, 5.2,
decision of 'to' or not is out of his hands. Madness poisoned him anyway. Laertes admits his
foiled scheme, cannot intellectualise death anymore
• 'The treacherous instrument is in thy hand / Unbated and envenomed.' Laertes, 5.2
• 'The rest is silence. ' Hamlet, 5.2, , focuses more on the lose of hamlet the individual, nothing
left for audience to hang on
• 'Goodnight, sweet Prince, / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.' Horatio,5.2
,APPEARANCE VS REALITY:
• 'Who's there?' (Barnardo, pg 177)
• 'At least the whisper goes so.' (Horatio, pg 186)
In this world nothing is ever for certain -> scepticism rampant
• '“Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.” / ‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, cold
mother, / Nor customary suits of solemn black, […] These indeed “seem,” / For they are
actions that a man might play. / But I have that within which passeth show, / These but the
trappings and the suits of woe.' (Hamlet, pg 201)
Metatheatrical. Expectation vs reality. Anaphora and syndeton. Aesthetic completion with
rhyming couplet. What playing the role of grieving son would look like.
• 'But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.' (Hamlet, pg 209)
Duality of Hamlet's role -> duty to country vs to himself
• 'My father, methinks I see my father.' / 'Where, my lord?' ' In my mind's eye, Horatio.'
(Hamlet and Horatio, pg 211)
Audience has already seen it. Bathos. Inner vision vs outer vision. Father at the forefront of his
mind.
• 'My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.' (Horatio about ghost, pg 212)
• 'Give every man thy ear but few thy voice' (Polonius, pg 225)
Be who you need to be for people, don't show people your character.
• 'Neither a borrower nor a lender, boy, / For loan oft loses both itself and friend / And
borrowing dulleth th'edge of husbandry.' (Polonius, pg 226)
• ‘one may smile and smile and be a villain' (Hamlet, pg 249)
• ‘Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced, / No hat upon his head; his stockings fouled,
/ Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle, / Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other,
/ And with a look so piteous in purport / As if he had been loosed out of hell / To speak of
horrors, he comes before me.'
Not prince like -> something dishevelled about him. His new persona presented through
someone else for the first time. Why did he go to see Ophelia.
• 'What do you read, my Lord?' / 'Words, words, words.' (Polonius and Hamlet)
• 'Though this be madness yet there is method in't' (Polonius about Hamlet, pg 282)
• 'my weakness and my melancholy' (Hamlet, pg 308)
• 'though it lacked form a little, Was not like madness' (Claudius, pg 323)
• 'We heard it all.' (Polonius, pg 324)
• 'Give me that man / That is not passion's slave and I will wear him / In my heart's core'
(Hamlet, pg 331)
• 'Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?' (Hamlet, pg 353)
As if Hamlet is pretending to see. Changing perception over time (performed in globe etc). Antic
disposition.
• 'The body is with the King, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing.' 'A thing, my
lord?' 'Of nothing. Bring me to him.' Hamlet and Guildenstern, 4.2 invalidation of king's
monarchical influence, kingship is not in his soul -> solely bodily sense
• 'Farewell, dear mother.' / 'Thy loving father, Hamlet.' / 'My mother. Father and mother is
man and wife. Man and wife is one flesh. So - my mother. Come, for England!' Hamlet and
king , 4.3, unnecessarily petty -> mother who has restored her motherhood 'is conspicuously
absent.'
• 'The rabble call him lord' 4.5, messenger about Laertes 'Laertes shall be king!'
, WOMEN:
• 'And yet within a month / (Let me not think on't - Frailty, thy name is Woman)' (Hamlet pg
207)
• 'O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason / Would have mourned longer - married with
my uncle, / My father's brother (but no more like my father / Than I to Hercules)' (Hamlet,
pg 208)
• 'O most wicket speed! To post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets' (Hamlet, pg 208)
• 'you yourself / Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.' (Polonius to Ophelia,
pg 227)
• 'He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders / Of his affection to me. ' / 'Affection? Pooh,
you speak like a green girl' (Ophelia and Polonius, pg 228)
Not serious, legal or financial. Polonius picks up on one word and lays into her
• 'I do not know, my lord, what I should think.' (Ophelia, pg 228)
(Actress has a decisive role in how this comes across.)
• 'Wronging it thus - you'll tender me a fool' (Polonius, pg 228)
Not a fool on his own. Reputation of father dependent on that of daughter.
• 'These blazes, daughter, / Giving more light than heat, extinct in both / Even in their promise
as it is a-making, / You must not take for fire.' (Polonius, pg 229)
• 'Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers' (Polonius, pg 230)
• 'I shall obey, my lord.' (Ophelia, pg 231)
Will this be her downfall? Parallels with Hamlet's assertion to Ghost.
• 'that incestuous, that adulterate beast' (Ghost pg 244)
• 'So to seduce - won to his shameful lust / The will of my most seeming virtuous Queen.'
(Ghost pg 244)
• 'Leave her to heaven' (Ghost, pg 248)
• 'Oh most pernicious woman, / O villain, villain, smiling damned villain' (Hamlet, pg 249)
• 'I have been so affrighted.' 'My lord, as I was sewing in my closet Lord Hamlet' (Ophelia pg
263)
• 'Mad for thy love?' (Polonius, pg 264)
• 'I will go seek the King. / This is the very ecstasy of love' (Polonius, pg 265)
• 'Let her not walk I'th; sun' (Hamlet to Polonius, pg 281)
• 'The fair Ophelia' (Hamlet, pg 317)
• 'I never gave you aught' (Hamlet to Ophelia, pg 318)
• 'My honoured lord, you know right well you did, / And with them words of so sweet breath
composed / As made these things more right. Their perfume lost, / Take these again, for to
the noble mind / Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.' (Ophelia to Hamlet, pg 318)
What do words really mean
• 'Are you honest?' 'Are you fair?' (Hamlet to Ophelia, pg 319)
Honesty being conflated with loyalty -> his questions are mirrored -> he is false so he sees it
others. Discerning between illusion and reality -> does he need to reevaluate his language. Also in
his soliloquy he called her fair.
• 'I did love you once.' 'Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. ' 'You should not have
believed me' (Hamlet and Ophelia, pg 319)
• 'I loved you not' (Hamlet to Ophelia, pg 320)
• 'Get thee to a nunnery!' (Hamlet, pg 320)
• 'Get thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?' (Hamlet, pg 320)
'Nunnery as a defense mechanism for Hamlet -> Women set him off course
• 'be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.' (Hamlet, pg 321)
• 'if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you
make of them. To a nunnery go, and quickly too. Farewell.' (Hamlet to Ophelia, pg 321)
• ' 'Tis here.' (Said by Barnardo and Horatio, pg 191)
• ' 'Tis gone.' (Marcellus, pg 192)
• 'The spirit dumb to us will speak to him.' (Horatio, pg 194)
Hamlet is the 'right' person.
• 'Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine / And thy best graces spend it at thy will / But
now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son' (Claudius, pg 199)
Time is Laertes -> as though time is something he can control, do some people have more control
than others? Only now turns to Hamlet. Hamlet is immediately identified by familial connections
which necessitate his actions. Stark juxtaposition between Laertes and Hamlet. Duality of
Hamlet's identity, not singularity. He is identified in relation to Claudius -> molding.
• 'I do not set my life at a pin's fee' (Hamlet, pg 238)
Doesn't value his life anyway so will follow ghost regardless of danger
• 'My fate cries out / And makes each petty artery in this body / As hardy as the Nemean lion's
nerve.' (Hamlet, 239)
• 'Heaven will direct it.' 'Nay, let's follow him.' (Horatio and Marcellus, pg 240)
Two ways to respond to tragedy -> Instrument and agent.
• 'Haste me to know ’t, that I, with wings as swift / As meditation or the thoughts of love /
May sweep to my revenge.' (Hamlet, pg 243)
Lexical set of words to do with speed. Hamlet determined to get revenge as quickly as possible ->
impulse will be flattened as Hamlet starts reckoning with the demands and moral implications of
revenge. This is the bound hamlet not thinking of any wider issues.
• 'I find thee apt' (Ghost to Hamlet, pg 243)
• 'howsomever' (Ghost, pg 248)
• 'The time is out of joint; O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right!' / Nay, come,
let's go together' (Hamlet, pg 257)
Singularity vs team work. Parallel between agency and instrument. Hamlet's duty as a revenger.
Natural order disturbed.
• 'Call me what instrument you will, though you fret me you cannot play upon me.' (Hamlet,
pg 353)
Agent vs instrument. Can produce a certain emotion but it won't necessarily produce an action
they want. You can assign me a role but I won't fulfil it
• 'My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent' (Claudius, pg 359)
• 'What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me - Help, ho!'…..'How now! A rat! Dead for a
ducat, dead!' 3.4
Impulsivity, arras, theatricality. Polonius has violated the privacy of the moment -> no matter
who they are rat -> polonius has taken role of audience, hamlet has broken 4th wall, theatre can
transcend barriers
• 'What hast thou done?' 'I know not. Is it the King?' 'O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!'
'A bloody deed - almost as bad, good mother, / As kill a king and marry with his brother' 3.4
Hamlet 'knows not' -> impulsivity only so he doesn't actually have to claim actions?
• 'Do it, England! / For like the hectic in my blood he rages / And thou must cure me. Till I
know 'tis done, / Howe'ver my haps my joys will ne'er begin' King, 4.3
• 'How all occasions do inform against me / And spur my dull revenge' Hamlet, 4.4, other
things got in the way
• 'O, from this time forth / My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.' Hamlet, 4.4, thoughts
previously have not been bloody, words that sound so decisive yet are so empty -> goes to
England in next scene -> supposed to believe theres an imminent action yet he won't be on
stage
,• 'O thou vile king' Laertes, 4.5, Tension is palpable as Hamlet's just left, Irony is that this is
what hamlet should be doing but wrong person, hamlet never addressed Claudius so
directly, contrast to how polite he and his father were to the king before
• 'I'll not be juggled with. To hell allegiance, vows to the blackest devil, Conscience and grace
to the profoundest put. I dare damnation' Laertes, 4.5 condemning because he's got the
wrong person? Explaining / celebrating hamlet's moralising
• 'Let come what comes' echoes 'let be'
• 'That we would do we should do when we would, for this 'would' changes / And hath
abatements and delays as many' -> King, 4.7, identity, if you don't act now you won't be able
to do it later -> ghost leaves it to 'howsoever', King instructs
• 'What would you undertake / To show yourself in deed your father's son / More than in
words?' King to Laertes 4.7
• 'To cut his throat I'th church' Laertes
• 'No place indeed should murder sanctuarize. Revenge should have no bounds. But good
Laertes, / Will you do this?' King to Laertes, ideal of revenge, element of sacrilege, Hamlet is
bound in a nutshell
• 'A sword unbated and in a pass of practice / Requite him for your father.' Claudius ,4.7 ,
revenger needs instruction
• 'I will do't. / And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword' -> in order to go from 'would' to 'will'
Laertes gets something hamlet didn't receive, instruction.
• 'I ha't ' Claudius, 4.7, features of a soliloquy but two are on stage
• 'I'll have preferred him A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping, if he by chance escape
your venomed stuck, Our purpose may hold there. But stay, what noise?' Claudius, 4.7, right
before Gertrude enters, proleptic irony, queen enters right after talk about chalice, C has
inadvertently plotted Queen's death
• 'Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, / And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet / It is
our trick. Nature her custom holds, / Let shame say what it will. [wheeps] When these are
gone, / The woman will be out' Laertes, 4.7, female qualities are what prevents action, eg
hamlets moralising
• 'Gertrude, do not drink.'
• 'I will, my Lord. I pray you pardon me.' King and Gertrude, 5.2, Gertrude is a casualty of a
scheme devised by the very man who should have been able to protect her, why does she
defy Claudius. Gertrude in many ways sacrifices herself for hamlet
• 'And yet it is almost against my conscience.' Laertes, 5.2, doesn't embrace the dilemma
• 'I am justly killed with mine own treachery.' Laertes, 5.2, who is 'justly' killed in this final
scene
• 'O villainy, ho! Let the door be locked. Treachery! Seek it out.' Hamlet, 5.2,
• 'It is here, Hamlet, thou art slain. / No medicine in the world can do thee good' Laertes, 5.2,
decision of 'to' or not is out of his hands. Madness poisoned him anyway. Laertes admits his
foiled scheme, cannot intellectualise death anymore
• 'The treacherous instrument is in thy hand / Unbated and envenomed.' Laertes, 5.2
• 'The rest is silence. ' Hamlet, 5.2, , focuses more on the lose of hamlet the individual, nothing
left for audience to hang on
• 'Goodnight, sweet Prince, / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.' Horatio,5.2
,APPEARANCE VS REALITY:
• 'Who's there?' (Barnardo, pg 177)
• 'At least the whisper goes so.' (Horatio, pg 186)
In this world nothing is ever for certain -> scepticism rampant
• '“Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.” / ‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, cold
mother, / Nor customary suits of solemn black, […] These indeed “seem,” / For they are
actions that a man might play. / But I have that within which passeth show, / These but the
trappings and the suits of woe.' (Hamlet, pg 201)
Metatheatrical. Expectation vs reality. Anaphora and syndeton. Aesthetic completion with
rhyming couplet. What playing the role of grieving son would look like.
• 'But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.' (Hamlet, pg 209)
Duality of Hamlet's role -> duty to country vs to himself
• 'My father, methinks I see my father.' / 'Where, my lord?' ' In my mind's eye, Horatio.'
(Hamlet and Horatio, pg 211)
Audience has already seen it. Bathos. Inner vision vs outer vision. Father at the forefront of his
mind.
• 'My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.' (Horatio about ghost, pg 212)
• 'Give every man thy ear but few thy voice' (Polonius, pg 225)
Be who you need to be for people, don't show people your character.
• 'Neither a borrower nor a lender, boy, / For loan oft loses both itself and friend / And
borrowing dulleth th'edge of husbandry.' (Polonius, pg 226)
• ‘one may smile and smile and be a villain' (Hamlet, pg 249)
• ‘Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced, / No hat upon his head; his stockings fouled,
/ Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle, / Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other,
/ And with a look so piteous in purport / As if he had been loosed out of hell / To speak of
horrors, he comes before me.'
Not prince like -> something dishevelled about him. His new persona presented through
someone else for the first time. Why did he go to see Ophelia.
• 'What do you read, my Lord?' / 'Words, words, words.' (Polonius and Hamlet)
• 'Though this be madness yet there is method in't' (Polonius about Hamlet, pg 282)
• 'my weakness and my melancholy' (Hamlet, pg 308)
• 'though it lacked form a little, Was not like madness' (Claudius, pg 323)
• 'We heard it all.' (Polonius, pg 324)
• 'Give me that man / That is not passion's slave and I will wear him / In my heart's core'
(Hamlet, pg 331)
• 'Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?' (Hamlet, pg 353)
As if Hamlet is pretending to see. Changing perception over time (performed in globe etc). Antic
disposition.
• 'The body is with the King, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing.' 'A thing, my
lord?' 'Of nothing. Bring me to him.' Hamlet and Guildenstern, 4.2 invalidation of king's
monarchical influence, kingship is not in his soul -> solely bodily sense
• 'Farewell, dear mother.' / 'Thy loving father, Hamlet.' / 'My mother. Father and mother is
man and wife. Man and wife is one flesh. So - my mother. Come, for England!' Hamlet and
king , 4.3, unnecessarily petty -> mother who has restored her motherhood 'is conspicuously
absent.'
• 'The rabble call him lord' 4.5, messenger about Laertes 'Laertes shall be king!'
, WOMEN:
• 'And yet within a month / (Let me not think on't - Frailty, thy name is Woman)' (Hamlet pg
207)
• 'O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason / Would have mourned longer - married with
my uncle, / My father's brother (but no more like my father / Than I to Hercules)' (Hamlet,
pg 208)
• 'O most wicket speed! To post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets' (Hamlet, pg 208)
• 'you yourself / Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.' (Polonius to Ophelia,
pg 227)
• 'He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders / Of his affection to me. ' / 'Affection? Pooh,
you speak like a green girl' (Ophelia and Polonius, pg 228)
Not serious, legal or financial. Polonius picks up on one word and lays into her
• 'I do not know, my lord, what I should think.' (Ophelia, pg 228)
(Actress has a decisive role in how this comes across.)
• 'Wronging it thus - you'll tender me a fool' (Polonius, pg 228)
Not a fool on his own. Reputation of father dependent on that of daughter.
• 'These blazes, daughter, / Giving more light than heat, extinct in both / Even in their promise
as it is a-making, / You must not take for fire.' (Polonius, pg 229)
• 'Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers' (Polonius, pg 230)
• 'I shall obey, my lord.' (Ophelia, pg 231)
Will this be her downfall? Parallels with Hamlet's assertion to Ghost.
• 'that incestuous, that adulterate beast' (Ghost pg 244)
• 'So to seduce - won to his shameful lust / The will of my most seeming virtuous Queen.'
(Ghost pg 244)
• 'Leave her to heaven' (Ghost, pg 248)
• 'Oh most pernicious woman, / O villain, villain, smiling damned villain' (Hamlet, pg 249)
• 'I have been so affrighted.' 'My lord, as I was sewing in my closet Lord Hamlet' (Ophelia pg
263)
• 'Mad for thy love?' (Polonius, pg 264)
• 'I will go seek the King. / This is the very ecstasy of love' (Polonius, pg 265)
• 'Let her not walk I'th; sun' (Hamlet to Polonius, pg 281)
• 'The fair Ophelia' (Hamlet, pg 317)
• 'I never gave you aught' (Hamlet to Ophelia, pg 318)
• 'My honoured lord, you know right well you did, / And with them words of so sweet breath
composed / As made these things more right. Their perfume lost, / Take these again, for to
the noble mind / Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.' (Ophelia to Hamlet, pg 318)
What do words really mean
• 'Are you honest?' 'Are you fair?' (Hamlet to Ophelia, pg 319)
Honesty being conflated with loyalty -> his questions are mirrored -> he is false so he sees it
others. Discerning between illusion and reality -> does he need to reevaluate his language. Also in
his soliloquy he called her fair.
• 'I did love you once.' 'Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. ' 'You should not have
believed me' (Hamlet and Ophelia, pg 319)
• 'I loved you not' (Hamlet to Ophelia, pg 320)
• 'Get thee to a nunnery!' (Hamlet, pg 320)
• 'Get thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?' (Hamlet, pg 320)
'Nunnery as a defense mechanism for Hamlet -> Women set him off course
• 'be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.' (Hamlet, pg 321)
• 'if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you
make of them. To a nunnery go, and quickly too. Farewell.' (Hamlet to Ophelia, pg 321)
