Hamlet: With an introduction, a list of further reading, commentary and a short account of the textual problems of the play. Used and recommended by the Royal Shakespeare Company

by William Shakespeare

KING How is it that the clouds still hang on you? HAMLET Not so, my lord. I am too much in the sun.

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

My father – methinks I see my father. HORATIO Where, my lord? HAMLET In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice. Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulleth edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true,

HORATIO What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, 70 Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o’er his base into the sea, And there assume some other, horrible form, Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason And draw you into madness? Think of it.

MARCELLUS 90 Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

GHOST I find thee apt, And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear. ’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forgèd process of my death Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father’s life Now wears his crown.

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole

HAMLET So be it!

HAMLET And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips As are companions noted and most known To youth and liberty.

Good lads, how do you both? ROSENCRANTZ As the indifferent children of the earth. GUILDENSTERN Happy in that we are not over-happy. On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.

What have 240 you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither? GUILDENSTERN Prison, my lord? HAMLET Denmark’s a prison. ROSENCRANTZ Then is the world one. HAMLET A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’th’worst.

GUILDENSTERN Which dreams indeed are ambition. For the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. HAMLET A dream itself is but a shadow.

ROSENCRANTZ To what end, my lord?

HAMLET I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.

HAMLET To be, or not to be – that is the question;

To die, to sleep – To sleep – perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil Must give us pause.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

HAMLET That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. OPHELIA Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce 110 than with honesty? HAMLET Ay, truly. For the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness.

Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool. For wise men know well enough what monsters you 140 make of them.

You nick- name God’s creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance.

O, woe is me T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

KING It shall be so. Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

HAMLET O, reform it altogether! And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them.

Give me that man That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee.

OPHELIA ’Tis brief, my lord. HAMLET As woman’s love.

For women fear too much, even as they love, And women’s fear and love hold quantity, In neither aught, or in extremity.

Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

Purpose is but the slave to memory, Of violent birth, but poor validity,

The violence of either grief or joy Their own enactures with themselves destroy.

This world is not for aye, nor ’tis not strange That even our loves should with our fortunes change.

Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown.

Sleep rock thy brain, And never come mischance between us twain!

QUEEN 240 The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

HORATIO Half a share. HAMLET A whole one, I.

GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord. HAMLET It is as easy as lying.

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.

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 somever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

A villain kills my father, and for that I, his sole son, do this same villain send To heaven.

With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

healing a sickness that is inevitable

KING (rising) My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

QUEEN 10 Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. HAMLET Mother, you have my father much offended.

Hit her with that uno reverse Ham

POLONIUS O, I am slain!

As be you should good sir!

QUEEN 40 What have I done that thou darest wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me? HAMLET Such an act

the OG stfu lol

HAMLET How is it with you, lady? QUEEN Alas, how is’t with you,

just two cookoo birds sitting in a closet

Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, That not your trespass but my madness speaks.