| .”But I have that within which passeth show…” | Who said it: Hamlet says this. What’s Hamlet saying? He is saying what is inside of me goes beyond my clothes. It isn’t just me looking depressed. I truly am melancholy. |
| “A little more than kin and less than kind” | Who says this? Hamlet says this about his uncle What’s Hamlet saying? though technically Hamlet is both his stepson and nephew, their relationship is not a good one – it is unfriendly and unnatural |
| But come,/Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,/How strange or odd some’er I bear myself/As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/To put an antic disposition on” | Who said this: HamletWhen did Hamlet say this? This scene comes at the end of Hamlet’s first meeting with his father’s ghost; he is swearing his friend Horatio and the officer Marcellus to secrecy about plans he hasn’t really explained |
| “Denmark is a prison” | Who said this: HamletWhy did Hamlet say this?: Hamlet says this because he is not allowed to leave Denmark. Obligations to the ghost-thing |
| “I am but mad north-northwest” | Hamlet says this to Rosencrantz/Guildenstern, meaning I’m only mad sometimes and the rest of the time, I know exactly what is going on |
| “Though this be madness, yet there be a method in it” | Who says this: PoloniusWhy does Polonius say this? Polonius says this about Hamlet. There is a sane method to the madness he is portraying. |
| “Brevity is the soul of wit” | Polonius says this. It is meant to be ironic because Polonius never stops talking and this is saying that being brief and concise is the best. |
| It is not very strange; for when my uncle is King of Denmark, and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little.” | Hamlet says this to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He is talking about how it is not surprising that people change their minds about the players so easily to enjoy the children actors instead. The same people who once made fun of his uncle now are buying little pictures of him for that much money. |
| “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave I am” | Hamlet says this in his soliloquy at the end of act II. He is saying how alone and mean and a low life he is. |
| “”Frailty, thy name is woman | Hamlet says this when he is angry with his mom for marrying his uncle so quickly after his father’s death. It’s saying that her weaknesses are true for all women. |
| “For the supply and profit of our hope,/Your visitation shall receive such thanks/as fits a king’s remembrance.” | The Queen says this to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as she tells them to go find out what is wrong with Hamlet. She basically tells them she will be paying them a good amount for their job. |
| Good Hamlet, cast they knighted color off/And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark” | Queen says it to Hamlet: Be nice to your uncle |
| “The time is out of joint. O cursed spite/That ever I was born to set it right” | Hamlet says this after talking to his father, the ghost. He is upset that now he has to go take revenge. |
| “I do know,/when the blood burns, how prodigal the soul/Lends the tongue vows.” | Who says this? PoloniusWhy does he say this? Polonius says this to Ophelia about Hamlet: When you’re in lust, you’ll say things you don’t mean to get what you want |
| “Like Niobe, all tears – why she even she (O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer)” | Hamlet says it in his soliloquy about his mother mourning for his father after he died and the haste in which she got married |
| Thrift, thrift Horatio. The funeral baked meats/Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.” | Hamlet says this to Horatio about how the wedding was right after the funeral |
| “My fate cries out/And makes each petty arture in this body/as hardly as the Nemean Lion’s nerve/Still I am called” | Hamlet is saying he can go with the ghost because he is strong enough to take on the lion |
| “But you must fear,/His greatness weighed, his will is not his own/ For he himself is subject to his birth.” | Laertes says this to Ophelia: Be careful because a prince will only marry a princess |
| “But to persevere/in obstinate condolment is a course of impious stubbornness.” | Claudius says this: Hamlet is being stubborn in his mourning |
| Bloody, bawdy, villain!/Remorselessness, treacherous, lecherous, kindles villain!” | Hamlet is speaking, and he is technically reciting one of his favorite monologues for the players that have come to visit. However, this is his way of getting a reaction from Claudius because it is so close to what really happened. He is referring to Claudius here is a sex-obsessed, inhumane villain. |
| What a piece of work is a man? How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties | Hamlet is explaining to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the melancholy and madness that his father’s death has brought upon him. He is also saying that oftentimes, man is more impressive in their understanding than in their action. |
| “But virtue as it never will be moved,/though lewdness court it in the shape of heaven, so lust, though to a radiant angle linked, /Will sate itself in a celestial bed/and pretty on garbage” | The ghost says this to Hamlet. He is saying Even if a lustful person acts good, they will still succumb to garbage (the king). Virtuous people won’t succumb to lust |
Hamlet Quotes
September 10, 2019