Hamlet Quotation ACT 2

“Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth; and thus do we of wisdom and of reach, with windlasses and with assays of bias, by indirections find directions out:” Polonius to Reynaldo. Polonius instructs Reynaldo to spy on his son, and use lies to find out the truth of his doings.
“y lord, as I was sweing in my chamber, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced, no hat upon his head, his stockings foul’d, ungarter’d, and down-gyved to his ancle: pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, and with a look so piteous in support, as if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of horrors, he comes before me.” Ophelia to Polonius. Ophelia tells her father about her encounter with Hamlet who looked very disheveled and left her in a very frightened state.
“He falls to such perusal of my face as he would draw it.” Ophelia to Pelonius. Ophelia describes how Hamlet stared at her, the intensity of his glare.
“Come, go with me; I will go seek the king. This is the very ecstasy of love; Whose violent property fordoes itself and leads the will to desperate undertakings as oft as any passion under heaven that does afflict our naures.” Polonius to Ophelia. Polonius reveals he thinks Hamlet’s crazy state is due to his love for Ophelia, and decides to speak to the king about the matter.
“I doubt it is no other but the main; his father’d death, and our o’erhasty marriage.” Queen to the King. The Queen is disbelieving in Polonius’ belief that Hamlet’s ecstatic state is due to love, but rather entirely due to his father’s passing.
“Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief” Polonius to King & Queen. Polonius says he will be brief in his explaining of Hamlet’s behavior, and yet is very redundant in doing so.
“More matter, with less art.” Queen to Polonius. The Queen encourages Polonius to not embellish his tale so much, and get to the point.
“Doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt that the sun doth move; doubt truth to be a liar; but never doubt I love.” Polonius to King & Queen. Polonius reads Hamlet’s letter as written to Ophelia.
“For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion.” Hamlet to Polonius. Hamlet sees the world as so corrupt that not even higher powers have the ability of moving through such vileness.
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” Polonius ASIDE. Polonius reflects upon the fact that Hamlet’s madness seems to have some kind of truth and clarity to it.
“How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reasons and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of.” Polonius ASIDE. Polonius finds Hamlet to be capable of amazing wit at times, and accredits this to Hamlet’s madness.
“Why, then, ‘is none to you: for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.” Hamlet to Roerncrants and Guildensten. Hamlet discloses the belief that the perception of good and bad rests only with the thinker, and that to him Denmark is a prison.
“This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other things to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.” Hamlet to R+G. Hamlet finds that despite the beauty around him and the sky’s majesty, he finds it all so pointless and vile he sees it all as nothing more than intoxicating vapours.
“What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in ation how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! and yet, tome, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so” Hamlet to R+G. Hamlet describes man as being a being of beauty and thought and grace, and yet feels as if we all come from dust and are therefore worthless in the end.
“I am but mad north-nort-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.” Hamlet to R+G. Hamlet says his madness is dependent on the weather, implying he is changeable and when in a good state of mind can quite clearly think normally.
“O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what treasures hadst thou!” Hamlet to Palonius. Hamlet compares Palonius to Jephthah a biblical figure who sacrificed his daughter to fulfill an oath.
“Od’s bodykins, man, better: use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping! Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty” Hamlet to Palonius. Hamlet tells Palonius to treat the theater troupe with as much dignity and respect as he would treat himself.
“O, what a rouge and peasant slave am I!” Hamlet SOLILOQUY. Hamlet compares himself to an idle vagabond.
“What’s Heccuba to him, or he to Hecuba that he should weep for her? What would he do had he the motive and the cue for passion that I have?” Hamlet SOLILOQUY. Hamlet dismisses the actor’s feigned theatrical emotions, and wonders what the actor would have done had he had such a connection to scene being enacted as Hamlet himself does.
“But I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall to make oppresion bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites with this slave offal.” Hamlet SOLILOQUY. Hamlet berates himself for being coward, or in other words not having the ‘guts’ to do what he must to avenge his father.
“The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” Hamlet SOLILOQUY. Hamlet feels the play will reveal the truth about kind Claudius.
August 9, 2019