Hamlet Review - Quotations and Contextual Translations

ELA 30 AP

1.What...doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?

g. Why are people working 24/7?

2. A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.

a. The ghost situation is bothersome.

3. Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature that we with wisest sorrow....[hath] taken to wife.

a. Claudius justifies his hasty marriage.

4. A little more than kin and less than kind.

a. Hamlet's opening aside reveals his aversion to his uncle step-father

5. Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed.

a. Poor leadership ruins a country.

6. Funeral...meats did coldly furnish... the marriage tables.

a. Horatio understands Hamlet's sarcasm.

7. His will is not his own [as] he...is subject to his birth.

a. bb. Laertes says a prince may not choose his wife.

8. Do not...show me the steep and thorny way to heaven whilst...himself...recks not his own rede.

a. Ophelia challenges her brother not to be a hypocrite.

9. Give every man thine ear but few thy voice.

a. Although he is often a fool, this is sound advice to his son.

10. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks...when the blood burns ...the [prodigal soul] gives the tongue vows.

i. Foolish girls are seduced by young men's passionate lies.

11. They clepe us drunkards.

a. Danes are reputed to drink too much.

12. The serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown.

l. A ghost says his brother killed him.

13. Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.

a. Reynaldo is to tell lies and spy on Laertes.

14. More matter with less art.

a. Gertrude tells Polonius to get to the point.

15. O Jephthah...what a treasure hadst thou!

a. Polonious foolishly ignores Hamlet's warning.

16. The spirit I have seen may be the devil.

f. Hamlet doubts the ghost's veracity.

17. To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

a. Hamlet considers the afterlife.

18. Most sovereign reason...blasted with ecstasy.

a. Ophelia truly believes Hamlet is mad.

19. Such love must needs be treason in my breast.

a. An actor's words upset Gertrude.

20. I will speak daggers...but use none.

a. Gertrude will hear painful truths.

21. In the corrupted currents of this world, offence's gilded hand may shove by justice.

a. Claudius knows he will pay for his crimes in the next world.

22. How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

a. Hamlet believes he's killed the king.

23. We have done but greenly in hugger-mugger to inter him.

aa. Claudius realizes he's made a mistake.

24. For his death no wind of blame shall breathe.

a. Claudius plots with Laertes.

25. One woe doth tread upon another's heel.

a. Ophelia's death soon follows her madness.

26. 'Tis a quick lie, sir.

a. A grave digger matches wits with Hamlet.

27. Forty thousand brothers could not... make up my sum.

a. Using a hyperbole, Hamlet professes his love for Ophelia.

28. They are not near my conscience; their defeat does by their own insinuation grow.

a. Hamlet feels no remorse for sending two former friends to be executed.