Worksheet 5: Quotation quest
(These are listed chronologically.)
- Who said it?
- When was it said?
- How is it relevant to the theme of corruption?
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"What art thou that usurp'st this time of night?"
(Horatio, the ghost's appearance in I.i; an omen of disorder)
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"This bodes some strange eruption to our state"
(Horatio; 1.i.; as above)
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"Our state to be disjoint and out of frame"
(Claudius; 1.2.; disorder in Elsinore)
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"How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of the earth"
(Hamlet; 1.2; his soliloquy which reflects his sadness at the hasty marriage of his mother, and death of his father)
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"Foul deeds will rise, / Though all earth o'erwhelm them, to men' eyes"
(Hamlet, final lines of Act 1 Scene 2; reference to the murder of his father which must be avenged)
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"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"
(Marcellus, Act 1 scene 4; referring to the omen of the ghost)
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"Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder"
(Ghost, Act scene 5; his murder is the cause of the chaos in court)
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"Meet it is I set it down / That one may smile, and smile and be a villain"
(Hamlet, Act 1 scene 5; referring to the deception practised by Claudius)
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"The time is out of joint.."
(Hamlet, Act 1 scene 5; all is not well and his destiny has been corrupted by the command to revenge)
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"I'll be brief. Your noble son is mad."
(Polonius, Act 2 2; telling Claudius about Hamlet's madness - a symptom of the chaos and deception in court)
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"Denmark's a prison." / "A goodly one.."
(Hamlet, Act 2 scene 2; reflects the claustrophia he feels within the chaotic court)
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"Get thee to a nunnery. Why, wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?"
(Hamlet, 3.1, to Ophelia - all women in his eyes are now corrupt, following his mother's marriage to C.)
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"O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven"
(Claudius; 3.3; the murder of his brother is corrupt in God's eyes)
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"Thou turnst my eyes into my very soul / And there I see such black and grained spots / As will not leave their tinct"
(Gertrude; 3.4; her guilt is evident at the corrupt nature of her marriage and C.)
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"Disease desperate grown / By desperate appliance are reliev'd"
(Claudius; Act 4.3; commenting ironically on Hamlet's madness but could also be referring to the court's corruption)
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"O this is poison of deep grief: it springs/All from her father's death"
(Claudius; 4.5; commenting on Ophelia. Note the motif of poison; a victim of corruption)
Published on: 08 Dec 2010
