I'm after everyone's favourite piece of wording in the play, just out of interest. I know this might be hard, so if you have a few, just put them all down!

-- Rachel Hatton (hattonhead@aol.com), August 02, 2003

Answers

Well Rachel, I think the whole play is just fab...however, if I did have to pick a few lines, these are the ones I would say are my favorites:

1. "Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue." (Act III, Scene IV)

2. "This above all: to thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." (Act I, Scene III)

3. "More matter, with less art." (Act II, Scene II) I have lots more, but these popped into my head first. It'll be interesting to see what everyone else says...

-- Lauren M. (lauren_marie85@yahoo.com), August 02, 2003.

Here are mine. Beginning with:

"I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams"

What a wonderful little speech! I could be shut in a space the size of a nutshell, but this would not matter so long as my mind was free; but the moment I have doubts, fears, anxieties, sorrows, the greatest palaces in the world would not be big enough for me.

"You cannot, Sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal"

"I dare damnation!"

"What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis? Whose phrase of sorrow conjures the wandering stars and makes them stand like wonder wounded hearers"

"Up sword and know thou a more horrid hent"

"What should be the fear? I do not set my life at a pins fee!"

"My fate cries out!"

and I must add:

"Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight sweet prince and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest"

-- Patrick Walker (the_right_hand_of_doom@msn.com), August 03, 2003.

I.v, Ghost: '... So lust, though to a radiant angel linked, shall sate itself in a celestial bed, and prey on garbage.' Hamlet: 'Yes, by St Patrick, but there is, Horatio, and much offence too.' And I.v.183-191. In nine lines WS steers Hamlet through about as many emotions. And how the hell else could you finish that scene? Brilliant.

II.ii, yes, Gertrude: 'More matter with less art.' Hamlet: 'And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?' Hamlet: ''Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.'

III.i, Hamlet: 'Nymph, in they orisons be all my sins remembered.' Hamlet: 'What should such fellows as I do, crawling between heaven and earth?' Ophelia: 'T'have seen what I have seen, see what I see!'

III.ii., Hamlet: 'What, frighted with false fire?' And the rest of the scene to the end.

III.iv, Hamlet: 'Now, mother, what's the matter?' Gertrude: 'If words be made of breath, and breath of life, I have no life to breathe what thou hast said to me.'

IV.iii, Hamlet: 'In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not, seek him i'th'other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.' IV.iv, Hamlet: '... go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, which is not tomb enough and continent to hide the slain.'

IV.v, Ophelia: 'Lord, we know what we are, but not what we may be.' Claudius, with Laertes' sword in his face: 'Speak, man.' And Ophelia: 'God have mercy on his soul. And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God bye you.' Exit. Laertes: 'Do you see this, oh God?'

IV.vii, Hamlet's letter to Claudius: 'High and Mighty, You shall know that I am set naked on your kingdom.'

V.i, most of the stuff with the gravediggers, and Gravedigger I with Hamlet and Horatio. Hamlet: 'O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, should patch a wall t'expel the winter's flaw!' Hamlet: 'What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis ... ?' Hamlet: 'I loved Ophelia.'

V.ii, Hamlet: 'The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer breath? ... ' Hamlet: 'That's two of his weapons. But well.' Hamlet: 'To this effect, sir, after what flourish your nature will.' And Hamlet: 'Since no man, of ought he leaves, knows, what is't to leave betimes?'

And on that note, I shall leave the subject.

-- catherine england (catherine_england@hotmail.com), August 04, 2003.