Jonathan O'Neill’s Reviews > Hamlet: Revised Edition > Status Update

HAMLET

[...] We defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all, since no man of aught he leaves knows what is't to leave betimes. Let be.

In the Graveyard

HAMLET
Dost thou think Alexander looked o’this fashion i‘ith’ earth?

HORATIO E’en so.

HAMLET And smelt so? Pah!

HORATIO E’en so, my lord.

HAMLET To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till ‘a find it stopping a bung-hole?

HORATIO ‘Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.

cont...

HAMLET
To be, or not to be – that is the question;
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them; to die: to sleep –
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished – to die: to sleep –

[...cont]

POLONIUS
My liege and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time;
Therefore, brevity is the soul of wit
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes.
I will be brief: your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it, for to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

[cont]

The finale to Prokofiev's 'Hamlet, Op.77', 'Fortinbras' Final March'... Wow! It's sublime, assertive, heroic and cathartic in a sweeping, cleansing way. However, it's also devastating with a sense of mourning and a subtly nagging ominousness beneath the surface. Bravo, Prokofiev! Bravo!

POLONIUS
'[I know] in part him, but', you may say, 'not well.
But if't be he I mean he's very wild,
Addicted so and so', and there put on him
What forgeries you please. Marry, none so rank
As may dishonour him – take heed of that –
But, sir, such wanton, wild and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty

REYNALDO
As gaming, my lord?

[...cont]

I feel like every one of Polonius' lines are quotable and want to commit them all to memory! Here's one I could use on my own daughters one day when warning of the affectations of those treacherous young men:

POLONIUS
...
Do you believe [Hamlet's] 'tenders', as you call them?

OPHELIA
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

POLONIUS
Marry, I will teach you; think yourself a baby
[cont.]

HAMLET
Ay, madam, [death] is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET
'Seems', madam — nay it is, I know not 'seems'.
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, cold mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
[...]