HAMLET Act 1, Scenes 1, 2, and 3

HAMLET

ACT 1, SCENE 1

Usurp: to take that which does not belong to one.

The younger son usurped the throne from his older brother.

Marcellus, Barnardo, Francisco: guards

Horatio: an intellectual, a scholar and Prince Hamlet’s best friend

Does Horatio believe the guards’ tale that a ghost – possibly the dead King’s ghost – is walking the earth?

"Tis here!"

"Tis here!"

"Tis gone!"

Notice how the above exchanges between the guards have a musicality, a rhythm which lend to the urgency of the scene.

Doth make the night joint laborer with the day? Visualize what that is saying. Imagine a guy (night) laboring (working) with another guy (day) working shoulder to shoulder. In other words, 24/7.

Thirty years ago Fortinbras challenged King Hamlet to a fight. A legal document was drawn up that who ever won the fray would secede the land to the winner. King Hamlet won.

Thirty years later young Fortinbras wants the land back.

Assignment: Page 19 draw three pictures illustrating Horatio’s and Marcellus’s lines.

Discuss on Monday the divine right of kings. What happens when the king’s right to rule is usurped by one who was not chosen by God to rule? The tenantless graves lie open and ghosts gibber in the streets. The natural order of things has been destroyed by someone (the usurper) who has challenged God’s choice for King. During the Renaissance it was believed that everything was God’s will – including who got to rule. God chose the king and anyone who assassinated the king was challenging God’s right.

Remember in MACBETH when Duncan was killed, there were earthquakes, and chimneys fell and horses devoured each other? Remember in JULIUS CAESAR when Caesar was assassinated, comets and stars dripped blood, and ghosts and strange animals walked the streets of Rome? The natural order had been destroyed.

Erring: wrong or erroneous

Hies: to rush to or run to

Confines: lair, home

No planets strike: comets strike the earth

No fairy takes: some parents believe that their sweet little baby has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, to be replaced by an unrecognizable spawn of satan. The baby replaced is called a changeling.

Act 1, Scene 2

Dirge: funeral march; music played at a funeral

Mirth: happiness

This is an example of irony.

Kin: relative – cousin, aunt, uncle.

Pun:

I am too much in the sun.

Hamlet is punning on the word “sun” which means that as the son of a slain father he is deeply troubled.

Filial: family

Perserver: to persist, to persevere, to not stop

Condolement: sorrow

Obstinate condolement: stubborn sorrow that refuses to be cheered

Impious: Sinful. Pious means religiously dutiful. The suffix means “not”.

That it us befitted is an example of inversion

That it befit us

Iambic pentameter: two syllables that are stressed and unstressed

Woe: sorrow, sadness, despair

Therefore, our sometimes sister, now our queen,

Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state,

Have we,

as twere (as if) with a defeated joy (oxymoron)

prepositional phrase: With an auspicious (fortunate) and a dropping eye (mournful) eye,

another prepositional phrase: With mirth in funeral (irony and paradox) and with dirge (funeral music) in marriage (irony and paradox).

In equal scale weighing delight and dole (sadness) (thesis/antithesis)

Taken to wife.

Put the main clause together and it reads simply, “Therefore…our Queen… we have taken to wife.” The prepositional clauses provide the emotional background against which the marriage has taken place.

One of the themes of HAMLET is one of thesis and antithesis: the offering of a proposition and the rebuttal or contradiction of that thesis. It is seen all throughout the play: “To be or not to be” is the most obvious example. The thesis/antithesis motif also echoes Hamlet’s hesitation or reluctance to take action throughout the play.

Take a look at lines 17 – 25

Young Fortinbras,

Having a weak supposal of our worth

Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death

Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,

Colleagued (In league with, combined with) with this dream of his advantage,

He hath not failed to pester us with message (understatement or litotes)

Importing the surrender of those lands

Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,

To our most valiant brother – so much for him.

What is the main clause?

List the dependent clauses.

What was young Fortinbras intending to do?

Levies: taxes

What is in the letter Claudius is sending to Old Norway? (And who is Old Norway?)

Laertes is the son of Polonius, the chief counselor to the King.

Laertes is a student who studies in France.

Line 66: “…my cousin Hamlet….” Kinsman or relative

How is that the clouds still hang on you?

Why are you still depressed?

Hamlet’s punning reply,” Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun.”

Sun is a homonym of son and he may be saying that “being my father’s son, I am responding in an appropriate way to my father’s death. It may also imply that I see clearly what’s going on.

Gertrude: “…Thou knows’t ‘tis common; all that lives must die, / Passing through nature to eternity.”

Hamlet: “Ay, madam, it is common.” This is an insult leveled at Gertrude. The Queen means the word common in the sense of ordinary; Hamlet means common in the sense of vulgar, referring to her relationship with her brother-in-law, now her husband.

The reoccurrence of the word “seems” dovetails with the play’s theme (one of many themes) of reality versus appearance (how things “seem” as opposed to how they really are).

Suspiration: breathing or sighing.

Dejected: melancholic

Havior: behavior

Visage: face

He is saying that the sighing, the dark visage, the tears are just the trappings of grief, but within, unseen, lie his real grief.

Claudius gives good advice to Hamlet – that death is a natural fact of life (which will later be revealed to be ironic considering who is saying that death is natural). He is also saying that grieving excessively is an insult to Heaven which implies that Hamlet is questioning God’s wisdom in taking his father’s life.

Jocund: merry; happy

Jocular: (adjective) happy, joking

Denmark drinks today: personification and also metonomy

Metonymy: some thing that is closely related to another object.

The White House released a statement today regarding the death of the diplomat Richard Holbrooke.

The Palace issued a comment today regarding the engagement of Prince William to Kate Middleton.

Bruit: noise, report as in a cannon’s report (the French word for noise is bruit).

In order to make an announcement the king’s cannons are fired which makes a huge report or noise (bruit) or rouse to the heavens.

As you read, think in images! Pay attention to the personifications, the metaphors, the similes, the imagery for they will reveal the inner meaning and heart and soul of Shakespeare’s words.

Page 27; King Claudius' Speech:

Persever: to persevere; to persist, to not give up

Impious: not pious; not religious;

Peevish: small minded; petty

Corse: Corpse; dead body

Retrograde: Going backwards; contrary; regressive; going backwards

Hamlet's Speech; page 29

Hamlet’s speech (page 29)

This is a soliloquy, the first of many that Hamlet speaks. A soliloquy is a speech spoken by a character who is alone on stage and is speaking her/his inner most thoughts. Here Hamlet is musing aloud (and alone) about his anguish over his father’s death and his mother’s o’er hasty marriage to Claudius who is like a satyr (a nasty half man, half goat) compared to his father, who is like the sun god, Hyperion. O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ‘gainst self‐slaughter! What is he speaking about here? Sullied means dirtied. What is he wishing for?

Who or what is the Everlasting?

Canon: a law

Self-slaughter means what?

Ere: (pronounced air) before

Incestuous: Highly inappropriate sexual relations between close family members

Why would Hamlet’s mother hang on his father?

“As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on.”

She hung on him as if by feeding or eating, her appetite would not be satisfied but would only grow.

Hyperion: the Sun God

Satyr: A lascivious nymph who is half man and half goat.

Distilled: Frozen

Draw a picture illustrating these lines:

“Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.”

Draw a picture illustrating these lines:

“Tis an unweeded garden

That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely.”

What is the unweeded garden?

Thaw: To melt

Dew: Wetness found on the grass in the morning; it is condensation formed from the moisture in the night air.

Could the unweeded garden be Denmark? His life? Human nature?

LInes 144 - 146:

So loving to my mother

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly.

Wants: in Shakespeare it means lacking.

A beast lacking in intelligence and reason would have cried longer for the death of its mate.

Look for these themes or motifs in HAMLET:

Disease and decay

Spying

Betrayal

Appearance (seeming) vs. Reality

Men vs. Women

Age vs. Youth

The role of Women

Hesitation and delay as a theme in HAMLET.

ACT 1, SCENE 3:

Laertes and Ophelia are saying farewell to each other before he departs to continue his studies in France.

As her elder brother, Laertes counsels Ophelia to be careful with Hamlet and not to ruin her reputation with him for even if he wanted to, he cannot marry her. Hamlet may really mean it when he says he loves her, but he can only act in so far as being the heir apparent to the throne will allow.

Temple: body

Wax: to grow large

Thewes and bulk: strength and size

Soil: grounds; reasons

Cautel: deceit

Besmirch: to dirty; to defile

Circumscribed: limited

Apparel: clothes

Libertine: Someone who over indulges in sensual delights; a hedonist

Page 45

Polonius’ speech to Ophelia:

Notice differences in how Polonius speaks to Laertes and how he speaks to Ophelia.

Notice and jot down all the references to sex and virginity and money and financial transactions.

Ophelia: “He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders

of his affection to me.”

Tenders: something that has the legal value of commerce. Check your dollar bill. It has “legal tender” on it which means that it has currency backing it and can be used to buy things.

Ophelia means “tenders” as in sweet things Hamlet has said to her, but it also has another meaning relating to money.

Polonius: “Think yourself a baby

That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay,

Which are not sterling.”

Sterling: silver, also used for money and to back currency.

Polonius: “Tender yourself more dearly.”

Value yourself more.

Polonius: “Set your entreatments at a higher rate

Than a command to parle.”

Entreatments: negotiations as in diplomacy

Rate: price

Command to Parle: Military command to meet in conference to talk (from the French word parler which means to talk.)

Tether: leash or rope to tie up or restrain an animal

Polonius: “Do not believe his voes, for they are brokers....”

Broker: a go-between or middleman who negotiates business dealings between a buyer and a seller. There are stock brokers and real estate brokers.

Polonius: “Not of that dye which their investments show...”

(His words are dressed up as holy like priests in their vestments - white collars, etc - which are just for show. The clothes are fake and not really of the proper cloth or dye like Hamlet’s words.)

“But mere implorators of unholy suits”

Implorators: Someone who urges others onto an action

Unholy suits: Impious; bawdy, licentious, lascivious actions

Polonius: “Breathing like sanctified and pious (bawds)

The better to beguile.”

Sanctified: blessed; made holy

Pious: Religious, observant of religious rules

Bawds: Licentious, lascivious, hedonistic people who engage in vulgar sensual activities. (Bawdy is the adjective; bawd is the noun).

Figurative Language:

Pious bawds: (oxymoron) vulgar people who pretend to be pious.

Beguile: to charm through deception or trickery.

Alliteration: the recurrence and repetition of the same sound or letter at the beginning of three or more words in a line of poetry. In the above line it is the repetition of the “B” sound: Breaking...bawds...better...beguile