2. Transnational Hamlet
POLONIUS (to Laertes)
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. (I.iii)
HAMLET (to Horatio)
But, to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honoured 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. (I.iv)
3. KING Attend!
Where is my Switzers? Let them guard the door. (IV.v)
HAMLET (to Osric)
But on. Six Barbary horses against six French swords, their
assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages—that’s the French
bet against the Danish. (V.ii)
OSRIC Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
To th’ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley. (V.ii)
4. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
MARCELLUS
Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land,
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon
And foreign mart for implements of war,
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week.
What might be toward that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint labourer with the day?
Who is ’t that can inform me? (I.i)
5. This warlike state
CAPTAIN
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway nor the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET
Why, then, the Polack never will defend it.
CAPTAIN
Yes, it is already garrisoned.
HAMLET
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw.
This is th’impostume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. (IV.iv)
6. Claudian tactics
KING
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, th’offender’s scourge is weighed,
But never the offense. (IV.iii)
7. What a king is this?
HORATIO
So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to ’t.
HAMLET
Why, man, they did make love to this employment.
They are not near my conscience. Their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow.
’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.
HORATION
Why, what a king is this! (V.ii)
8. Counsellor as sponge
ROSENCRANTZ Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
HAMLET Ay, sir, that soaks up the King’s countenance, his
rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the King best
service in the end. He keeps them like an ape an apple in the
corner of his jaw, first mouthed, to be last swallowed. When he
needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and,
sponge, you shall be dry again.
ROSENCRANTZ I understand you not, my lord. (IV.ii)
9. Truth(?)-seeking
POLONIUS (to Reynaldo)
Your bait of falsehood take this carp of truth;
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out. (II.i)
10. The Danish court as stage?
And all little enough: for we Princes, I tell you, are set on
stages, in the sight and view of all the world duly observed.
The eyes of many behold our actions; a spot is soon spied in
our garments, a blemish quickly noted in our doings.
—Queen Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots
11. ...or as ‘prison’?
KING
It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go. (III.ii)
OPHELIA
O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,
Th’expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mold of form,
Th’observed of all observers, quite, quite down! (III.i)
12. King and populace
GUILDENSTERN
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your Majesty.
ROSENCRANTZ
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 depends and rests
The lives of many. The cess 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. (III.iii)
13. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I
have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and
good will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as
you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being at
this time resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die
amongst you all, to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and
for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I
have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart
and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think
foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe should
dare to invade the border of my realm; to which rather than any
dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will
be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in
the field.
—Queen Elizabeth I, To the English Troops at Tilbury, Facing the
Spanish Armada
14. Is Hamlet his own person?
LAERTES (to Ophelia)
...Perhaps he loves you now,
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
The virtue of his will; but you must fear,
His greatness weighed, his will is not his own,
For he himself is subject to his birth.
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself, for on his choice depends
The safety and the health of this whole state.
And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head. Then, if he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed, which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal. (I.iii)
15. Philosopher-queen
I know the title of a king is a glorious title ... To be a king and
wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it, than it
is pleasant to them that bear it. For myself, I was never so much
enticed with the glorious name of a king or royal authority of a
queen, as delighted that God hath made me His instrument to
maintain His truth and glory, and to defend his kingdom (as I
said) from peril, dishonour, tyranny and oppression.
—Elizabeth I, The Golden Speech
16. Emperor/beggar
HAMLET
... Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures
else to 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.
...
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.
17. What a piece of work is a man
HAMLET (to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern)
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’er-hanging firmament, this majestical roof,
fretted with golden fire—why, it appeareth nothing to me but a
foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work
is a man, how noble in reason, how 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? (II.ii)
