Hamlet Hamlet Quotes

Hamlet

Quote 31

HAMLET
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.
(3.2.393-402)

When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern try to get Hamlet to confide in them, Hamlet is super ticked off. He compares deception to playing a musical instrument to mock his frenemies for not being skilled enough to "play" him. Oh, and guess what? Their deception ends up getting them killed, too.

Hamlet > Horatio

Quote 32

HAMLET
An earnest conjuration from the King,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma 'tween their amities,
And many suchlike ases of great charge,
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allowed.
[…]
HORATIO
So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to 't.
(5.2.43-52; 63)

Hamlet is patting himself on the back pretty strenuously about how he got revenge on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern by sending them to their deaths. Totally fair, he says: they deceived him, so they get what they deserve.

Hamlet

Quote 33

[…] 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!)
[…]
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.
(1.2.136-150; 161-164)

Hamlet's got a serious problem with mom. It's not just that he's disgusted by Gertrude's incestuous marriage to Claudius —Hamlet can hardly stand to think about his mother having sex, period. Which, um, seems normal to us. What's not normal is the way that he keeps thinking about it, anyway.