Hamlet Act and Scene Synopsis w/ quotes

no analysis of the quotes tho lol

Act 1, Scene 1

Act 1, Scene 1

Guards on the ramparts talk about the Ghost and then it appears

“fair and warlike form”

Act 1, Scene 2

Hamlet is introduced in the court and he prepares to see the Ghost with Horatio and co.

“less than kin and more than kind”

“mirth in funeral and dirge in marriage”

“an unweeded garden that grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature”

Act 1, Scene 3

Polonius gives commands to Laertes and Ophelia

“do not […] show me the steep and thorny way to Heaven”

“be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence”

Act 1, Scene 4

The gang see the Ghost again, it speaks, and Hamlet runs off with it

“something is rotten in the state of Denmark”

“I’ll call thee ‘Hamlet’ ‘King’ ‘Father’ ‘royal Dane’ O, answer me!”

Act 1, Scene 5

The Ghost delivers his speech and Hamlet forces the gang to keep it secret

“sleeping in my orchard. / A serpent stung me”

“courses through / the natural gates and alleys of the body”

“antic disposition”

Act 2, Scene 1

Polonius gets Reynaldo to spy on Laertes and warns Ophelia of a mad Hamlet

“Breathe his faults so quaintly / That they may seem the taints of liberty”

“This is the very ecstasy of love / Whose violent property fordoes itself”

Act 2, Scene 2

Hamlet is monitored by Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet makes fun of them, then watches the Players and comes up with a plan

“Doubt thou the stars are fire…”

“Fishmonger […] breeds maggots in a dead dog”

“foul and pestilent congregation of vapours”

“What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba?”

Act 3, Scene 1

Polonius requests Ophelia to monitor Hamlet after R+G come back without answers, Ophelia is abused misogynistically by Hamlet

“to be or not to be…”

“Get thee to a nunnery”

Act 3, Scene 2

Hamlet puts on the play within a play then seeks to kill Claudius

“Do you think I meant country matters / I think nothing my lord”

“O heart, lose not thy nature, let not ever / the soul of Nero enter this firm bosom”

Act 3, Scene 3

Hamlet spies on Claudius confessing during prayer but chooses not to kill him

“To Heaven. / Oh, this is hire and salary, not revenge”

“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below / Words without thoughts never to heaven go”

Act 3, Scene 4

Hamlet verbally attacks Gertrude, kills Polonius and sees the Ghost

“Come come you answer with an idle tongue / Come come you answer with a wicked tongue”

“would it were not so! - you are my mother”

“rank sweat of an enseamed bed…”

Act 4, Scene 1

Gertrude informs Claudius about Polonius’ murder

“To keep it from divulging, let it feed / even on the pith of life”

Act 4, Scene 2

Hamlet runs linguistic rings around R+G about the location of Polonius’ body before telling them

“Take you me for a sponge, my lord? / Ay, sir, that soaks up the King’s countenance”

“The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body”

Act 4, Scene 3

Claudius interrogates Hamlet and prepares to send him to England

“A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him”

“A king may go by progress in the guts of a beggar”

Act 4, Scene 4

Hamlet sees Fortinbras march into Poland and resolves to be more confident

“My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!”

Act 4, Scene 5

Ophelia’s madness worsens and Laertes is leading an uprising, but Claudius directs his grief towards Hamlet

“When sorrows come they come not in single spies but in battalions”

“There’s fennel for you, and columbines”

Act 4, Scene 6

Horatio reads a letter that says Hamlet has been saved from the ship by pirates

“I don’t know from what part of the world / I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet”

Act 4, Scene 7

Laertes and Claudius plan to kill Hamlet and Ophelia’s death is announced

“For goodness, growing to a pleurisy / dies in his own too-much”

“Her clothes spread wide / And mermaid-like a while they bore her up”

Act 5, Scene 1

Hamlet has a conversation with a gravedigger and then fights Laertes in Ophelia’s grave to prove their love for her

“The age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe”

“To outface me with leaping in her grave? / Be buried quick with her? - and so will I”

Act 5, Scene 2

Hamlet fences Laertes, both of them die in the process, Hamlet kills Claudius, Gertrude kills herself, Fortinbras takes over and Horatio survives

“Good night sweet prince, / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”

“Drink off this potion. Is thy union here? / Follow my mother”