Hamlet 3

Polonius:
Come, go with me. I will go seek the King.
This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings..

...This must be known, which being kept close, might
move
More grief to hide than hate to utter love.

-This passage is important to the play as a whole, because it is the first time that other characters can see that there is something wrong with Hamlet. While they figure that his behavior is due to his own internal conflicts, they fail to see that their own king is the reason for his grief. It also shows how quickly the characters have replaced the old King Hamlet with King Claudius, because they don't even consider the fact that Hamlet's father is dead as a reason for his distress.

-The passage is somewhat ironic, in that Polonius is going to the King to discuss how "the ecstasy of love, whose violent property" can lead "to desperate undertakings". The King himself, however, is a victim of this himself, having killed Hamlet's father in order to be with his wife. This passage could also refer to the murder where Polonius says "I am sorry that with better heed and judgement I had not coted (observed) him". Polonius is the councillor to King Claudius, and this line makes the reader aware of the irony created by his bringing this issue to the King's attention without having observed that the King is guilty of it himself.

Hamlet - Two

Ghost:
"I am thy father's spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
And for the day confined to dast in fires
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their
spheres,
Thy knotted and comined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand an end,
Like quills upon the fearful porpentine....
List, list, O list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love-


I chose this passage because it introduces another important aspect of the plot, and is the beginning of a very significant scene. Since the ghost first entered the play, a feeling of suspense was created. In this scene, Shakespeare is finally allowing the reader to be informed of the ghost's significance. The line " I could a tale..." serves to set up the rest of the play. The language, similies, and references to nature/life ("two eyes, like stars", "eternal blazon") make the reader aware of the importance of the secret that must be discovered. In this way, the passage builds up to the discovery of the king's murder - which is the central issue of the play.

Hamlet - One

Key Passage:

Hamlet: ...And yet, within a month,
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears - why she (even she)
(O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer!), married with my
uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
Ere yet the sald of most unrigheous tears
had left the flushing in her galled eye,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Importance:

I chose this passage because I feel that it introduces the main problem in the play. Shakespeare uses allusions to create certain ideas about the characters introduced. This passage clearly shows that Hamlet dissaproves of the situation, and feels that his uncle is insufficient as a king and is nothing like his father. The line toward the end of the passage serves to foreshadow the issues that will come due to this situation. This line adds to the idea of an ominous occurance first brought up by Horatio when they saw the ghost.