| This bodes some strange eruption to our state. | Horatio says this to Marcellus after seeing the ghost.Forshadows unnatural disturbanceCorruption in elizibethan world order [THEME] |
| Such was the very armour he had on/ When he the ambitious Norway So frowned he once, when, in an angry parle,/ He smote the sledded Pollacks on the ice. | Speaker: HoratioSpoken to: Marcellus and BarnardoMeaning: The ghost looks exactly like the King had in life, dressed in the armor he wore when he killed the king of Norway. This is important, because Horatio is a scholar and is less inclined to believe in ghosts. [CHARACTER] |
| “‘Seems,’ madam? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems.'” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: GertrudeMeaning: He is not pretending to be sad, but genuinely is very upset. He’s is lashing out at his mother and telling her off for not actually mourning. [CHARACTER] |
| “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.” | He wishes that he would evaporate into nothing or that God had not forbid suicide. [THEME] |
| “Frailty, thy name is woman!” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: No OneMeaning: Hamlet wants to end his life, due to the betrayal he feels from his mother’s marriage. All women. Misogyny? Places blame only on mom. [CHARACTER/THEME] |
| “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.” | Hamlet:Inner conflict, cannot break from reality even in his own thoughts. [CHARACTER] |
| “Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meatsDid coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: Horatio came to pay respects at King Hamlet’s funeral. Hamlet expresses his anger at how quickly the marriage followed. [CHARACTER] |
| “I’ll speak to it though Hell itself should gapeAnd bid me hold my peace” | Hamlet is quite aware that the Ghost could possibly be an evil spirit that has merely taken on the shape of his father. According to the folk theology of his time, attempting to speak to an evil spirit could conceivably damn his own soul. [CHARACTER.] |
| “For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favours,Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood;A violet in the youth of primy nature,Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,The perfume and suppliance of a minute —No more.” | Speaker: LaertesSpoken to: OpheliaMeaning: hamlet isn’t serious. cuts off sentance quickly symbolizing how quick their affair will be over. [CHARACTER, THEME] |
| “Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads.And recks not his own rede.” | Speaker: OpheliaSpoken to: LaertesMeaning: dont be a hypocrite tho. shows she’s not stupid. [CHARACTER] |
| “But to my mind, — though I am native hereAnd to the manner born, — it is a customMore honour’d in the breach than the observance.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: Hamlet is clearly showing his dislike of Claudius here (and he hasn’t even found out about the murder yet), as well as his somewhat prudish nature. He seems to find the King’s drinking quite distasteful, and views Claudius as a drunkard. [PLOT/THEME] |
| “Why, what should be the fear?I do not set my life at a pin’s fee,And for my soul, what can it do to that,Being a thing immortal as itself?” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: Hamlet does not value his life, so will not fear following the Ghost on the ground that it might kill him. Also, as his soul is of the same stuff as the Ghost, he need not fear his immortal part being damaged either. [CHARACTER] |
| “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” | Speaker: MarcellusSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: We’ve learned throughout this first act that the Danish court has become decadent and corrupt since the death of Hamlet’s father, that there is something extremely fishy about Claudius’s rise to power, and that the misrule has even upset the natural order of things (ghosts are walking around!). Marcellus’ line crystallizes the sense of unease that even the ordinary Danish people feel, and for which King Hamlet’s ghost has given a dramatic explanation. [THEME] |
| “The serpent that did sting thy father’s lifeNow wears his crown.” | Speaker: Ghost of HamletSpoken to: HamletMeaning: the story that claudius spread is that he was bitten by a snake. hinting that it was his uncle that killed him. [PLOT] |
| “Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d.” | Speaker: Ghost of HamletSpoken to: HamletMeaning: cleaning away of the sins of life in preparation for the deceased to meet Judgment. Hence, the following line: “…sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head.” [THEME] |
| “O most pernicious woman!O, villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!My tables, — meet it is I set it down,That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain” | A pernicious woman has a subtly destructive effect.The reference here is to his mother, the queen, now reduced to the “seeming-virtuous” queen.This smiling, damned villain is his uncle Claudius. (upset with his hypocrisy.)table=writing tablet. [CHARACTER] |
| “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: Marcellus and HoratioMeaning: Hamlet teasingly portrays Horatio as a narrow rationalist out of tune with the more exotic possibilities of the universe — such as ghosts walking the night. Implicitly, Hamlet’s own philosophy is more capacious and more willing to admit new, strange phenomena. [CHARACTER] |
| “How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself —As I perchance hereafter shall think meetTo put an antic disposition on” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: Marcellus and HoratioMeaning: he’s gonna pretend he’s crazy so no one figures anything out but how will anyone know if he’s pretending? [THEME/CHARACTER] |
| “The time is out of joint; O cursed spite,That ever I was born to set it right!” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: Marcellus and HoratioMeaning: expressing his tragedy. foreshadows coming tragedy. [THEME] |
| ” . . . Our last king/ Whose image even but now appear’d to us . . . Of this post-haste and romage in the land.” | Speaker: HoratioSpoken to: Marcellus and BarnardoMeaning: A long time ago, King Hamlet and King Fortinbras had some type of fight. The winner of the fight would get all the territories held by the loser that were not the mainland. King Hamlet killed King Fortinbras. Now, many years later, Prince Fortinbras has gathered an army to retake the lost lands. [PLOT] |
| “A moth is to trouble the mind’s eye.” | Speaker: HoratioSpoken to: Marcellus and BarnardoMeaning: The ghost is a bad omen and should be taken seriously. “moth” = speck of dust that disturbs eye. microcosm for the disturbance of the world. [THEME] |
| “A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,/ The grave stood tenantless . . . “ | Speaker: HoratioSpoken to: Marcellus and BarnardoMeaning: The ghost is a bad omen and should be taken seriously. He makes a parallel to the events that happened before Caesar’s murder. [PLOT] |
| Prologue to the omen coming on,/ Have heaven and earth together demonstrated/ Unto our climatures and countrymen. | Speaker: HoratioSpoken to: Marcellus and BarnardoMeaning: The ghost is a bad omen and should be taken seriously. Forshadowing approaching calamity. [PLOT] |
| “. . . That it us befitted/ To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom/ To be contracted in one brow of woe . . . “ | Speaker: King ClaudiusSpoken to: AllMeaning: He is lamenting briefly his brother’s death, but reminds his people that they need to move forward and defend their country, who is so often at war, especially with Prince Fortinbras pestering them to give back the lands King Hamlet took. Taking advantage of the situation and manipluating the state into thinking he should be king. [PLOT] |
| “Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,/ Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state . . . “ | Speaker: King ClaudiusSpoken to: AllMeaning: He is lamenting briefly his brother’s death, but reminds his people that they need to move forward and defend their country, who is so often at war, especially with Prince Fortinbras pestering them to give back the lands King Hamlet took. He speaks of “jointress” but he commit murder which disrupts the Elizabethan world order. [THEME] |
| “A little more than kin and less than kind.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: AsideMeaning: He doesn’t care for the strange new family ties. He could have been kind by just adding one more letter, but Hamlet hates him so much that he doesn’t think Claudius deserves it. [CHARACTER] |
| “How is it that the clouds still hang on you?” | Speaker: CladiusSpoken to: HamletMeaning: King Claudius is trying to convince Hamlet to be less morose and not to return to Wittenburg for school, but stay at the castle. Hamlet is in black clothes and pale faced in mourning which contrasts everyone’s happiness for the wedding.[CHARACTER] |
| ‘Not so, my lord. I am too much in the sun.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: King ClaudiusMeaning: Hamlet is bitter about being so akin to a sun to Claudius. Pun. a) harsh light of the court. b) in the relation of a son. [CHARACTER] |
| “Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/ His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: No OneMeaning: Hamlet wants to end his life, due to the betrayal he feels from his mother’s marriage. He can’t though because it’s unlawful in his religion. [CHARACTER] |
| “Let it be tenable in your silence still.” | Speaker: HamletSpoken to: HoratioMeaning: Hamlet plans to go see the spirit. He wants the others to keep quiet about what they’ve seen and not talk of it. Hamlet already seems aware that this information about his father’s ghost could be a complication in his relationship with the King, his uncle. Though he is unaware of the exact role his uncle played in his father’s death, he seems to harbor something more than simple dislike against his uncle, and he wants to be certain that Horatio and the soldiers don’t blab any information that could be used against him by Claudius. [PLOT] |
| ” . . . Perhaps he loves you now,/ And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch/ The virtue of his will, but you must fear.” | Speaker: LaertesSpoken to: OpheliaMeaning: even though he might love you, dont return it bc he’s gonna have to marry a royal member in a political marriage for all of Denmark. [THEME/CHARACTER] |
| The Canker galls the infants of the spring/ Too oft before the buttons be disclosed,/ | Speaker: LaertesSpoken to: OpheliaMeaning: Ophelia’s youthful innocence is a state of the highest vulnerability, for the affections — not yet inoculated by experience — are most susceptible to being damaged. you’re gonna hurt yourself by being to indiscreet rn. [PLOT/THEME] |
| “I shall the effect of this good lesson keep/ As watchman to my heart.” | Speaker: OrpheliaSpoken to: LaertesMeaning: does she not trust him?? she’s saying she’s gonna take the gist of the message. she doesn’t really buy this bc she thinks hamlet loves her. [THEME/CHARACTER] |
| “You do not understand yourself so clearly/ As it behooves my daughter and your honor.” | Speaker: PoloniusSpoken to: OpheliaMeaning: The first is connected to her filial responsibility being the daughter of essentially the top member of the Danish cabinet. The second ‘your honour’ undoubtedly refers to her virginity. [THEME] |
| That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay,Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;Or–not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,Running it thus–you’ll tender me a fool. | Speaker: PoloniusSpoken to: OpheliaMeaning:”tenders for true pay” — tenders here meaning expressions/notes;”Tender yourself more dearly” — tender here meaning treat/regard;”tender me a fool” — tender here meaning make to appear. [CHARACTER] |
| “If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not. | Speaker: Ghost of HamletSpoken to: HamletMeaning: The impulse to revenge here is presented by the Ghost as natural; as previously it indicates that Hamlet will be bound to vengeance once he hears of the crime.This idea of nature, as tending toward self-correction and virtue, is distinctly different from the cynical view Hamlet previously expressed of the world as an unweeded garden, possessed merely by things rank and gross.It may be, though, that the world in Hamlet’s view is not the natural world, but the cultural one. [THEME] |
Hamlet Act 1 quotes
July 7, 2019