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O that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d 135 His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Frailty, thy name is woman!—
Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.
His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own; For he himself is subject to his birth: He may not, as unvalu’d persons do, Carve for himself; for on his choice depends The safety and health of this whole state; 25 And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d Unto the voice and yielding of that body Whereof he is the head.
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst, like a puff’d and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads And recks not his own read.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be: 80 For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,—to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter, Giving more light than heat,—extinct in both, Even in their promise, as it is a-making,—
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life 45 Now wears his crown.
The time is out of joint:—O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!—
It seems it as proper to our age To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions As it is common for the younger sort 130 To lack discretion.
That we find out the cause of this effect; Or rather say, the cause of this defect, 110 For this effect defective comes by cause: Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
‘Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; 125 Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.
Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
Though this be madness, yet there is a method in’t.—
there is nothing either 260 good or bad but thinking makes it so:
What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how 310 infinite in faculties! in form and 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? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by 315 your smiling you seem to say so.
Do you hear? Let them be well used; for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time; after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.
the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.
May be the devil: and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy,— As he is very potent with such spirits,— Abuses me to damn me: I’ll have grounds 590 More relative than this.—the play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
To be, or not to be,—that is the question:— 65 Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance.
O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
It shall be so: Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.
Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and 20 now, was and is, to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own image, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; 25 the censure of the
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Pro acting tips from Hamlet
OPHELIA 110 I think nothing, my Lord. HAMLET That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.
OPHELIA ’Tis brief, my Lord. HAMLET As woman’s love.
I do believe you think what now you speak; But what we do determine oft we break. Purpose is but the slave to memory; Of violent birth, but poor validity: Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree; 180 But fall unshaken when they mellow be. Most necessary ’tis that we forget To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt: What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy Their own enactures with themselves destroy: Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. This world is not for aye; nor ’tis not strange 190 That even our loves should with our fortunes change; For ’tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend: For who not needs shall never lack a friend; And who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him his enemy.
Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
HAMLET Madam, how like you this play? QUEEN 220 The lady protests too much, methinks.
For some must watch, while some must sleep: So runs the world away.—
‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me 350 what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
O, come away! My soul is full of discord and dismay.
a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to 25 fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service,—two dishes, but to one table: that’s the end.
HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, 30 and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. KING 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.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions!
One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, 180 So fast they follow:—your
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well, When our deep plots do fail; and that should teach us 10 There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.
the rest is silence.
Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
