| “Through yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death The memory be green, and that it is befitted To bear our hearts in grief….” | ClaudiusIts sad that the king is dead but we now have something new to celebrate on… the marriage of himself and Gertrude. |
| “Tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed… A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she followed my poor father’s body” | HamletThe kingdom is corrupted, the Queen is also by marrying Claudius less than a month after the king’s death. |
| “Neither a borrower nor a lender beFor loan oft loses both itself and friend.” | Polonius Giving advice to Laertes, his son, that it is wiser to not borrow or lend because he needs to learn the power of working for what you want. |
| “I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of excercises, and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame…” | Hamlet He is grieving. Human kind is so great, but Hamlet is not impressed with it lately. |
| “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, but not in a fiction, in a dream of passion…” | Hamlet He plans the play that he will use to tell if Claudius is the actual murderer of his father. His idea is based off of the story of Troy and the Trojans |
| “to be or not to be – that is the question” | HamletPondering the question of life or death, to put up with the suffering or just end it all |
| “O, my offense is rank, it smells to heave; It hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘t, A brother’s murder. Pray can I not…” | ClaudiusRealizes how terrible the crime he committed is “ |
| “How all occasions do inform against me and spur my dull revenge” | HamletOn board of the ship to England, thinks of how he needs to complete his revenge |
| “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue…” | HamletInstructs the actors how to act out the play. Be as normal as possible, to be not be overly dramatic. It has to be perfect |
| “Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day, All in the morning betime, and I a maid at your window…” | OpheliaA song Ophelia sings about how the first woman a man sees is his true love, a woman sits at a particular window to be seen by a man first but it costs her her virginity. |
Major Speeches of Hamlet
July 14, 2019