Key Passages

1. I.ii [Lines 134-164] 

Hamlet

"O that this too too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this!

But two months dead! — nay, not so much, not two:

So excellent a king; that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!

Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: and yet, within a month, — 

Let me not think on't, — Frailty, thy name is woman! — 

A little month; or ere those shoes were old

With which she followed my poor father's body

Like Niobe, all tears; — why she, even she, — 

O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason,

Would have mourn'd longer, — married with mine uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules: within a month;

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married: — O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to good;

But break my heart, — for I must hold my tongue!"

Hamlet's first soliloquy of the play is significant in that it reveals his true and deepest feelings about the situation that he is put in. After Claudius and Gertrude express their utter distaste in Hamlet's ongoing mourning over his father's death, Hamlet then begins to express his true feelings. In this soliloquy, he expresses how if taking one's own life were not to send you straight to hell, then he would do so. He is completely depressed and in grief over this. He is also outraged over the fact that his mother went on to marry so quickly and even worse, she marries her deceased husband's brother! This passage sheds light onto Hamlet's deep relationship with his father and that he was a loved and respected man; also the hurt that he feels over his mother's haste in remarrying without mourning for a respectable time.

2. I.v [Lines 49-98]

Ghost

"Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,

With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts—

O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power

So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust

The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.

O Hamlet, what a falling off was there!

From me, whose love was of that dignity

That it went hand in hand even with the vow

I made to her in marriage, and to decline

Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor

To those of mine.

But virtue, as it never will be moved,

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,

So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,

Will sate itself in a celestial bed

And prey on garbage.

But soft! Methinks I scent the morning air.

Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,

My custom always of the afternoon,

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole

With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,

And in the porches of my ears did pour

The leperous distilment, whose effect

Holds such an enmity with blood of man

That swift as quicksilver it courses through

The natural gates and alleys of the body

And with a sudden vigor doth posset

And curd, like eager droppings into milk,

The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine.

And a most instant tetter barked about,

Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust

All my smooth body.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand

Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled.

No reckoning made, but sent to my account

With all my imperfections on my head.

Oh, horrible, oh, horrible, most horrible!

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be

A couch for luxury and damnèd incest.

But howsoever thou pursuest this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge

To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.

The glowworm shows the matin to be near,

And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.

Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me."

Once King Hamlet reveals to Hamlet that he was murdered by his brother, the King goes on to tell Hamlet how he did so. Indeed he was poisoned by his brother. Once the king was dead, Claudius then goes on to seduce Gertrude and she, being a lustful person, fell for it and gave in to his seductions. The king then goes on to tell Hamlet to seek revenge, but do it without harming himself or his mother, for she can be left with her own guilt. It's important to show the contrasting characteristics between King Hamlet and Claudius. This passage is important to examine in that it establishes the difference between good and evil. Although Hamlet would like his son to seek revenge on his murderer, he does not wish harm for him. This passage also marks the reason for revenge. Now that Hamlet knows what happened to his father, and with his father's "blessing," he can now seek to avenge his father and take back what is rightfully his.

xoxo,

Kara Slug