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HAMLET Act 1 Scene 2 Soliloquy
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! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, (135)
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely
...
Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, (145)
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 follow'd my poor father's body, (150)
Like Niobe, all tears: -- why she, even she -O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month: (155)
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married
...
this
...
Here he thinks of the body as
hiding from us the freshness, life, and nobleness of God's creation"
...
resolve, dissolve;
132
...
stale, vapid; flat, tasteless,
134
...
'tis an
...
things
...
137
...
That it
...
to this, when compared to the present king
...
Hyperion to a satyr, what the god of day is to a creature half
goat, half man
...
That he
...
143
...
144, 5
...
on, as if her loving desire had been made more eager
by its mere satisfaction; been strengthened by the food of love it had
enjoyed
...
Let me
...
woman, if we
wished to give frailty a descriptive name, no better one could be
chosen than 'woman
...
A little month, a short month; scarcely a month: or ere, before,
145
...
to the grave
...
Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, and wife of Amphion
...
150
...
reason, that lacks the power of reasoning, the
reasoning faculty;
152
...
father, but, though so closely akin in blood, no
more akin in disposition to, etc
...
Ere yet
...
155
...
eyes, had ceased to cry galled, to rub a sore place
...
to post, to hurry at full speed; from post, a runner, messenger
...
With such dexterity, so quickly and cleverly
...
2)
Now I am alone
...
Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, (540)
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made
...
peasant slave, wretched bondman
...
But in
...
524
...
conceit, could so constrain his soul into sympathy with
the idea which he had made his own in interpreting it
...
That from
...
Tears
...
527
...
A broken
...
530, 1
...
her? what relation is there between Hecuba and
him that he should so sympathize with her woes? i
...
there is no such
relation
...
cue, indication, prompting;
534
...
speech, and split the ears of his audience with the
horror of his words
...
Make mad
...
536, 7
...
539
...
John-a-dreams, i
...
John of dreams, = a sluggish, sleepy, fellow
unpregnant of my cause, with a mind that as yet no idea of how to act
542
...
A damn'd
...
544
...
e
...
across? breaks my head
from one side to the other
545
...
Tweaks, pulls; a word always used in a contemptuous sense
...
gives me
...
'Swounds, I should take it, by God's wounds I should accept the insult
without retaliating
...
for it
...
e
...
fatted, fattened; all the region kites, all the kites of this region
553
...
Remorseless, pitiless kindless, without natural feeling
...
most brave, said ironically
...
I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks; (570)
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course
...
by heaven and hell, by heaven; by hell, in its sending the spirit of the
dead king to stir me up
...
Must
...
560
...
e
...
561
...
562
...
cunning, skill with which the scene was portrayed
...
will speak
...
I'll tent
...
572
...
Out of, by means of
...
As he is
...
577
...
me, misleads me with the object of making me commit
some great crime which will consign me to perdition
...
more relative, more pertinent, and so more conclusive
...
catch, snare
...
1)
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? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks (70)
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd
...
-- Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd
...
To be
...
whether
...
58
...
59
...
No more, i
...
for death is nothing more than a sleep
63, 4
...
wish'd, that is a conclusion for which we may well pray
...
there's the rub, there is the difficulty;
66-8
...
pause, for the doubt as to what dreams may come in that
sleep of death, when we have put off this encumbrance of the body must
compel us to hesitate when considering the question of suicide;
though coil is elsewhere used by Shakespeare as = turmoil, tumult, and may
here include that meaning also, the words shuffled off seem to show that
the primary idea was that of a garment impeding freedom of action
...
there's the respect
...
70
...
time, the blows and flouts to which one is exposed in this
life;
73
...
That patient
...
Furness remarks, "In the
enumeration of these ills, is it not evident that Shakespeare is speaking in
his own person?
75
...
With a bare bodkin, small dagger, fardels, burdens
77
...
bourn, boundary, confines
80
...
84, 5
...
thought, and thus over the natural colour of
determination there is thrown the pale and sickly tinge of anxious
reflection
...
of great pitch and moment, of soaring character and mighty impulse
...
With this
...
88
...
Nymph, literally bride; orisons, prayers;
90
...
remember'd! may you remember to ask pardon for all my sins!
Hamlet's Soliloquy: Tis now the very witching time of night (3
...
380-391)
Tis now the very witching time of night, (380)
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on
...
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever (385)
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
How in my words soever she be shent, (390)
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!
General gist =
379
...
night, the very time of night when witchery
abounds, when the ghost appears?
380
...
381
...
382
...
383
...
lose not thy nature, do not forget your natural affection for your
mother
...
Nero, Roman emperor who murdered his mother in the most
brutal manner; this firm bosom, this bosom of mine, fully
determined though it is to punish the guilty
...
speak daggers, i
...
words that will stab to the heart as keenly as
daggers would pierce the flesh;
388
...
hypocrites, in this matter let my soul be a
hypocrite to my tongue, i
...
though appearing to approve of my
words not assent to my carrying them into action
...
How in
...
3)
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't
...
That would be scann'd:
A villain kills my father; and for that, (80)
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven
...
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
'Tis heavy with him
...
My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days
General gist =
73
...
pat, I could not find a time more perfect to kill him
75
...
76
...
79
...
salary, such a deed as that would be something
for which I might well ask payment
80
...
bread, he took my father by surprise when in a
state of gross and luxurious living
...
With all
...
And how
...
83
...
But in our
...
85
...
soul, in seizing the opportunity of killing him
when he is purging his soul of guilt
...
passage, sc
...
88
...
hent, and
wait to seize a more terrible opportunity;
89
...
91
...
92
...
in 't, that, unlike his present occupation, has
nothing in it that savours of the salvation of his soul
...
Then trip
...
95
...
96
...
days, "Hamlet calls his temporary
forbearance a physic which does not impart life to his foe, but
prolongs his illness" (Delius)
...
4
...
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not (40)
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused
...
Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge (50)
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare, (55)
Even for an egg-shell
...
How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, (60)
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot (65)
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
General gist =
32
...
me, how everything goes against me
34
...
35
...
36, 7
...
after, endowed us with such comprehensive faculties, faculties
which concern themselves with both the future and the past; not like those of
brute beasts which seem concerned with the present moment only
...
to fust, to grow fusty, mouldy
40
...
41
...
42
...
A thought
...
44
...
do,' this act still remains to be done
46
...
me, so plain that the dullest man could not fail to recognize
them
47
...
48
...
50
...
event, laughs at the possible consequences;
51
...
53
...
54
...
55
...
straw, but to be prompt to find in the slightest provocation for
fighting
51
...
stake, when honour is concerned;
56-9
...
sleep? how unworthy is my position, then, who though my
father has been murdered and my mother's good fame destroyed — still allow
things to remain exactly as they were without making the smallest effort to
remedy them
...
for a
...
like beds, as readily as they would to their beds: plot, small strip of land
...
Whereon
...
64
...
continent, which is not large enough to be the tomb and
cover; continent, that which contains;