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Recitation and quotes from Hamlet:
HAMLET
129
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
130
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
131
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
132
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
133
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
134
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
135
Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
136
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
137
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
138
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
139
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
140
Hyperion to a satyr;
POLONIUS
55
Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
56
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
57
And you are stay’d for. There, my blessing with thee!
58
And these few precepts in thy memory
59
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
60
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
61
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
62
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
63
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
64
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
65
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged courage. Beware
66
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
67
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
68
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
69
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
70
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
71
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy,
72
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
73
And they in France of the best rank and station
74
Or of a most select and generous chief in that.
75
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
76
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
77
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
78
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
79
And it must follow, as the night the day,
80
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
81
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
GHOST
9
I am thy father’s spirit,
10
Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,
11
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
12
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
13
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
14
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
15
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
16
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
17
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
18
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
19
And each particular hair to stand on end,
20
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
21
But this eternal blazon must not be
22
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
23
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—
HAMLET
24
O God!
GHOST
25
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
HAMLET
26
Murder!
GHOST
27
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
28
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.
HAMLET
29
Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift
30
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
31
May sweep to my revenge.
GHOST
31
I find thee apt;
32
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
33
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
34
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:
35
‘Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
36
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
37
Is by a forged process of my death
38
Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,
39
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
40
Now wears his crown.
HAMLET
40
O my prophetic soul!
41
My uncle?
GHOST
42
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
43
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts—
44
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
45
So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust
46
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
47 ...
59
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
60
My custom always of the afternoon,
61
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
62
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
63
And in the porches of my ears did pour
64
The leperous distillment; whose effect
65
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
66
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
67
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
68
And with a sudden vigor doth posset
69
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
70
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
71
And a most instant tetter bark’d about,
72
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
73
All my smooth body.
74
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
75
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch’d:
76
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
77
Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d,
78
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
79
With all my imperfections on my head:
80
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
81
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
82
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
83
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
84
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
85
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
86
Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven
87
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
88
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
89
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
90
And ‘gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
91
Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.
HORATIO
164
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
HAMLET
165
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
166
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
167
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
168
But come—
169
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
170
How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,
171
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
172
To put an antic disposition on,
173
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
174
With arms encumber’d thus, or this headshake,
175
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
176
As “Well, well, we know,” or “We could, an if we would,”
177
Or “If we list to speak,” or “There be, an if they might,”
178
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
179
That you know aught of me—this not to do,
180
So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear.
KING
1
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
2
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
3
The need we have to use you did provoke
4
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
5
Of Hamlet’s transformation; so call it,
6
Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man
7
Resembles that it was. What it should be,
8
More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him
9
So much from th’ understanding of himself,
10
I cannot dream of. I entreat you both,
11
That, being of so young days brought up with him,
12
And sith so neighbor’d to his youth and havior,
13
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
14
Some little time, so by your companies
15
To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather,
16
So much as from occasion you may glean,
17
Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,
18
That, open’d, lies within our remedy.
HAMLET
56
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
57
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
58
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
59
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
60
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep—
61
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
62
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
63
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
64
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
65
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
66
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
67
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
68
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
69
That makes calamity of so long life;
70
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
71
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
72
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
73
The insolence of office and the spurns
74
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
75
When he himself might his quietus make
76
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
77
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
78
But that the dread of something after death,
79
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
80
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
81
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
82
Than fly to others that we know not of?
83
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
84
And thus the native hue of resolution
85
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
86
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
87
With this regard their currents turn awry,
88
And lose the name of action.
Pivotal quotes from Hamlet
Act 1 Quotes
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew. — Hamlet, 1.2.130
Frailty, thy name is woman! — Hamlet, 1.2.146
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. — Hamlet, 1.2.179
This above all — to thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. — Polonius, 1.3.78
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. — Marcellus, 1.4.95
O, villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! — Hamlet, 1.5.105
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. — Hamlet, 1.5.168
Act 2 Quotes
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. — Polonius, 2.2.92
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. — Hamlet, 2.2.237
I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. — Hamlet, 2.2. 241
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? — Hamlet, 2.2.286
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? — Hamlet, 2.2.518
The play’s the thing,
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king. — Hamlet, 2.2.566
Act 3 Quotes
To be, or not to be, —that is the question:—
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? — Hamlet, 3.1.58
Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. — Hamlet, 3.1.124
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery … ‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. — Hamlet, 3.2.328
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. — Claudius, 3.3.98
Act 4 Quotes
Claudius: What dost thou mean by this?
Hamlet: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. (4.iii.28)
Act 5 Quotes
Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest…. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? — Hamlet, 5.1.160
We defy augury; there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. — Hamlet, 5.2.206
Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. — Horatio, 5.2.3