"Good Night, Sweet Prince": Lines from "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare

The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare [1564-April 23, 1616] is one of the most famous tragedies in the world. Hamlet’s soliloquy, “To Be or Not To Be,” is the most famous monologue in the world. The play is thought to have been written between 1599 and 1601. Three different versions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet were printed in the early seventeenth century.

Entitled The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, the first printed version appeared in 1603. This is the shortest version. Scholars refer to it as the First Quarto. It was printed in quarto format, which produces a book by printing eight pages of text on each sheet of paper and then folding each sheet twice to form four leaves. It is also known as the "bad quarto" because it differs significantly from the other two versions. Many passages are difficult to read. Some scholars think that the "bad quarto" was printed from a manuscript that was written from memory by an actor who had a small part in the play in performances outside of London. Other scholars think that it is an early, working draft from which the two subsequent versions were drawn.

Also entitled The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, the second printed version is dated 1604 or 1605. Known as the Second Quarto, it is the longest version. The title page of this version describes itself as “Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect Coppie.” This version is preferred by those who think that its source was either Shakespeare’s personal manuscript or a scribe’s copy of the playwright’s own manuscript.

Entitled The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, the third printed version is dated 1623. This version appeared in the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays and is known as the First Folio. This version includes 85 lines that do not appear in the Second Quarto but it also omits about two hundred lines that are found in the Second Quarter. This version is preferred by those who think that its source was a theater manuscript, which thereby presents the play as it was actually performed.

The text of Hamlet that is familiar to most readers and playgoers is a combination of the Second Quarto and the First Folio.

Hamlet is the most –quoted of all of Shakespeare’s writings. This is not surprising. The play tackles emotions, happenings, and thoughts that have timeless appeal and application. It is a play that intrigues all ages.

The play’s main character displays the enigmatic psychological range that the young and the naïve experience in their determined search for truth, for understanding, and for their place in the world. It is a search that seeks to harmonize life’s mysteries and wildernesses with young minds and naïve hearts. Unfortunately, this search is frequently painful, leaves scars, and tempers victories with losses. The transience of trust and truth is a major thematic loss in Hamlet. Their fragility is exemplified by the sub-tragedy of Hamlet and Ophelia, in their interactions with each other and through others.

Eternal questions are elegantly presented in this tragedy:

How does truth lie?

What is reality?

What is illusion?

Does injustice require a personal reckoning?

What is the point of human life?

Is love a challenge or a blessing?

Answers differ according to the perspective and experience of each character, within themselves and vis-à-vis others. It is the interaction between characters of various ages with various interrelationships and with various motivations that envigorates this play and has insured its relevance to countless generations worldwide for over 400 years.

Here follow quotations from this beloved play whose main character has never ceased to bewilder, enchant, and sadden his audience.

Queen Gertrude [to her son, Prince Hamlet, concerning his months-long grief over the sudden death of his father, King Hamlet]:
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

Hamlet:
Ay, madam, it is common.

Queen Gertrude:
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

Hamlet:
"Seems," madam! Nay it is; I know not "seems."
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passes show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

NOTES:

cast thy nighted color off:  stop wearing black clothing [in mourning]

suspiration:  deep sighing or breathing

vailèd lids:  downcast eyes with lowered lids

Hamlet [soliloquizing after explaining his grief for his father's death to his mother]:
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
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. 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 mourned longer --- married with my 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 gallèd 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.

NOTES:

might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly:  not allow the wind to be rough on her face

the flushing in her gallèd eyes:  the redness in her irritated eyes

So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr: Such an excellent king, who was, compared with this [King Claudius], like comparing Hyperion ["the High One"], the Titan God of Watchfulfness and Wisdom, to a satyr, a lower deity often with goatlike features

like Niobe, all tears: In Greek mythology, because of her incessant tears for the loss of her children, Niobe was changed into a stone from which water flowed continually.

Horatio [explaining to Hamlet why he is at Elsinore Castle]:
My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.

Hamlet:
I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

Horatio:
Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

Hamlet:
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father!--methinks I see my father.

Horatio:
Where, my lord?

Hamlet:
In my mind's eye, Horatio.

Horatio:
I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

Hamlet:
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

Hamlet [soliloquizing after hearing of the appearance of the ghost of his recently deceased father to his friend Horatio as well as to Marcellus and Barnardo, sentinels of the night watch:
My father's spirit in arms! All is not well.
I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come!
Till then, sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

Polonius [King Claudius' councillor, father of Ophelia and Laertes, advising his son prior to his son's return to student life in France]:
Yet here, Laertes! Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stayed for. There, my blessing with thee.
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear 't that the opposèd may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
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.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

Hamlet [explaining to Horatio the nearby sounds of partying at midnight, while they await an appearance by the ghost of Hamlet's father]:
The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swagg'ring upspring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

Horatio:
Is it a custom?

Hamlet:
Ay, marry, is't:
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honored in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations.
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition. And, indeed, it takes
From our achievements, though performed at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So oft it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin--
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners, that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--
Their virtues else, be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault. The dram of evil
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal.

NOTES:

soil our addition: tarnish our titles of honor

clepe us drunkards: call us drunkards

pith and marrow of our attribute:  the essence of our reputation

plausive manners:  pleasing or acceptable

makes us traduced and taxed of other nations:  maligned and criticized by other nations

keeps wassail: drinking bouts with lots of toasts to good health [wassail]

Marcellus [explaining to Horatio the meaning of the appearances by the ghost of Hamlet's father]:
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

NOTE:

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark: something is extremely wrong here

Hamlet [to himself after his first conversation with his father's ghost]:
O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart,
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables --- meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile and smile and be a villain.
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.

Hamlet [discussing with Horatio and Marcellus his first encounter with his father's ghost]:
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 come.
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd some'er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on,
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumbered thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As "Well, well, we know," or "We could, an if we would,"
Or "If we list to speak," or "There be an if they might,"
Or such ambiguous giving-out, to note
That you know aught of me: this do swear,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you.

Hamlet [bemoaning to Horatio and Marcellus his duty to avenge injustice]:
Rest, rest, perturbèd spirit! --- So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you,
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do t' express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint: O cursèd spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let's go together.

NOTE:

cursèd spite:  petty ill will

Polonius [explaining to Hamlet's uncle, King Claudius, and his mother that Hamlet's madness is caused by Polonius advising his daughter, Ophelia, to reject Hamlet because "Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star."]:
This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.
"Mad" call I it, for, to define true madness,
What is 't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

Hamlet [confiding to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz that Denmark no longer appeals to him]:
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' the worst.

Rosencrantz:
We think not so, my lord.

Hamlet:
Why, then, 'tis none to you, for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me
it is a prison.

Hamlet [describing his recent mood change to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz:
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the King
and Queen molt no feather. I have of late, but
wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises, and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire --- why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! 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 your smiling
you seem to say so.

NOTE:

your secrecy to the King and Queen molt no feather:  not lose any feather of secrecy, i.e., your secrecy to the King and Queen remains intact 

Hamlet [explaining to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz that his madness is temporary and situational]:
I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is
southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.

NOTE:

I know a hawk from a handsaw: a proverb meaning that the speaker has the knowledge and awareness to recognize differences.

Hamlet [in this soliloquy, comparing himself unfavorably to an actor who puts feeling into his actions, berating himself for his passivity, and then planning to determine his uncle's guilt or innocence in his father's death by way of graphic scenes in a play]:
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me "villain"? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha! 'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion! Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions.
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
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
More relative than this. The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

NOTES:

drab:  prostitute

Hecuba: In Greek mythology, she was the wife of King Priam of Troy

John-a-dreams: a dreamer, absent-minded and oblivious

Hamlet [poignantly soliloquizing about the pros and cons of life vs. death]:
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 heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. 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. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--- Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! --- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

NOTES:

bare bodkin: an unsheathed dagger

who would fardels bear: who would burdens bear

orisons:  prayers; petitions

great pitch and moment: great height and importance

Ophelia:
My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to redeliver;
I pray you, now receive them.

Hamlet:
No, not I;
I never gave you aught.

Ophelia [observing that the perfection of a gift is marred by the subsequent bad behavior of the gift-giver:
My honored lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,
Take these again, for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.

Hamlet [asking his mother about the Player Queen who has just made numerous assertions of faithfulness to her recently deceased husband]:
Madam, how like you this play?

Queen Gertrude:
The lady protests too much, methinks.

Hamlet [reciting lines to Horatio after King Claudius, upset with the re-enactment of his murder of his brother, Hamlet's father, abruptly ends the play and exits]:
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungallèd play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.

NOTE:

ungallèd:  not seized; not hurt

Hamlet [metaphorically explaining to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz that he knows that they are his uncle's spies]:
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; you would sound me from my lowest note to
the top of my compass: and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot
you make it speak. '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, yet you
cannot play upon me.

Hamlet [soliloquizing about the influence of evil times of night upon actions and his determination not to be so influenced]:
Tis now the very witching time of night,
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. Soft! now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
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 somever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

NOTES:

How in my words somever she be shent: however in my words she be punished

Nero: a Roman emperor, often depicted as a symbol of ultimate evil, who murdered his mother, Agrippinga

give them seals: give them approval or validation

Rosencrantz [explaining to King Claudius and Guildenstern the ripple effect of royal action upon the kingdom]:
The single and peculiar life is bound
With all the strength and armour of the mind
To keep itself from noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
What's near it with it; or it is a massy wheel
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

King Claudius [final comments on his soliloquy confessing to his brother's murder and admitting his lack of true repentance while enjoying the fruits of the murder, i.e., marriage to his brother's wife, accession to the throne, the power of his ambitions, etc.]:
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Hamlet [beginning to outline to his mother those recent failings and weaknesses in her that have dire consequences and effects]:
Now, mother, what's the matter?

Queen Gertrude:
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Hamlet:
Mother, you have my father much offended.

Queen Gertrude:
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

Hamlet:
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

Queen Gertrude:
Why, how now, Hamlet!

Hamlet:
What's the matter now?

Queen Gertrude:
Have you forgot me?

Hamlet:
No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.

Queen Gertrude:
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

Hamlet:
Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.

NOTE:

by the rood:  by the cross

Hamlet [explaining to his mother that his fatal stabbing of Polonius was a necessary evil]:
I do repent; but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind.
This bad begins and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.

NOTES:

and worse remains behind: and worse is still to come

I must be their scourge and minister: I must be both the source of punishment and heaven's agent of retribution

King Claudius [commenting to two or three attendants that extreme remedies for restraining Hamlet must be balanced with Hamlet's great popularity]:
I have sent to seek him and to find the body.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He's loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
And where 'tis so, the offender's scourge is weighed,
But never the offense. To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.

NOTES:

Diseases desperate grown by desperate appliance are relieved: Desperate situations require desperate remedies or solutions.

the offender's scourge is weighed, but never the offense: the punishment --- not the crime --- is criticized

King Claudius [observing to Queen Gertrude that sorrows attract more sorrows]: 
O, this is the poison of deep grief. It springs
All from her father's death, and now behold!
O Gertrude, Gertrude!
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions:  first, her father slain;
Next, your son gone, and he most violent author
Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly,
In hugger-mugger to inter him; poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts:
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death,
Wherein necessity, of matter beggared,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.

NOTES:

wherein necessity, of matter beggared: wherein necessity, without facts

will nothing stick our person to arraign:  will not hesitate in accusing me of the crime

buzzers:  gossipers

and we have done but greenly in hugger-mugger:  we [royal "we"] have behaved foolishly without proper ceremony

Hamlet [reminiscing over the skull of a long-dead companion to Horatio and Gravedigger]:
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath
borne me on his back a thousand times, and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now to mock your own grinning? Quite chapfallen?
Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must
come. Make her laugh at that.

NOTE:

chapfallen: dejected; in low spirits; with lower jaw hanging down

gorge:  throat

Horatio [expressing concern to Hamlet that he might lose in the upcoming duel with Ophelia's brother Laertes]:
If your mind dislike anything, obey it: I will forestall
forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit.

Hamlet:
Not a whit, 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. Since no man of aught he
leaves knows, what is 't to leave betimes? Let be.

NOTES:

no man of aught he leaves knows: no man knows about what he leaves behind

betimes: early

a special providence in the fall of a sparrow: Matthew 10:29-31:

²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

³⁰But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

³¹Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.

Hamlet [final words before dying]:
O, I die, Horatio!
The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit.
I cannot live to hear the news from England.
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras; he has my dying voice.
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

Horatio:
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

NOTE:

The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit: the strong poison overpowers me

Hamlet [explaining to Horatio his fortune in thwarting King Claudius' order for his death]:
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,
And praised be rashness for it, let us know,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will,--

NOTES:

bilboes: shackles

mutines: mutineers

pall: weaken, lose

 Mowat, Barbara A. and Paul Werstine, ed. The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare. Folger Shakespeare Library.  New York:  Washington Square Press, 1992.

Copyright July 2, 2010 by Stessily