Hamlet Acts Overview

Act 1 Scene 1:

Overview:

• Francisco, Bernardo, Marcellus and Horatio are on night watch.
• Bernardo and Marcellus attempt to convince Horatio that they saw a ghost of the old Hamlet.
• To Horatio's surprise, the ghost appears.
• The ghost speaks to nobody, and eventually disappears.
• The watchmen resolve to tell Hamlet.

Key quotes:

• "Who's there?" - Bernardo.
• "Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart." - Francisco.
• "A piece of him." - Horatio (when asked if it is him).
• "Let us once again assail your ears, that are so fortified against our story." - Bernardo to Horatio (metaphor).
• "Had made his course to illume that part of heaven where now it burns." - Bernardo (about a star).
• "Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!" - Horatio to the ghost.
• "This bodes some strange eruption to our state." - Horatio.
• "It started like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons." - Horatio.
• "The morn in russet mantle clad." - Horatio (morn meaning morning).

Key themes:

• Disease/decay.
• War and conflict.
• Corruption.
• Death.

Act 1 Scene 2:

Overview:

• Claudius makes a speech about both Hamlet's death, and his hasty marriage to Gertrude.
• Laertes asks to go abroad, and Claudius permits this.
• However, Hamlet is refused leave to Wittenberg.
• Hamlet speaks his first soliloquy, remarking on the digust he holds for humanity, and how he wishes he could kill himself.
• Horatio enters and tells Hamlet about the ghost.

Key quotes:

• "Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death, the memory be green." - Claudius.
• "One brow of woe." - Claudius.
• "With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage." - Claudius.
• "Let your haste commend your duty." - Claudius to Voltemand and Cornelius.
• "The head is not more native to the heart... than is the throne of Denmark to thy father." - Claudius to Laertes.
• "A little more than kin, and less than kind." - Hamlet.
• "I am too much i' the sun." - Hamlet.
• "All that lives must die, passing through nature into eternity." - Gertrude.
• "Nay it is! I know not seems." - Hamlet.
• "'Tis unmanly grief." - Claudius.
• "Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt," - Hamlet.
• "Canon 'gainst self-slaughter." - Hamlet.
• "'Tis an unweeded garden." - Hamlet.
• "Hyperion to a satyr." - Hamlet.
• "Frailty, thy name is woman!" - Hamlet.
• "My lord, and your poor servant ever." - Horatio.
• "Nor shall you do my ear that violence." - Hamlet to Horatio (when he says he came to visit as an act of truancy).
• "The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables." - Hamlet.
• "I doubt some foul play." - Hamlet.

Key themes

• Disease and decay.
• Nature.
• Death.
• Religion.
• Friendship and loyalty.

Act 1 Scene 3:

Overview:

• Laertes prepares to leave for France.
• He gives some advice to Ophelia, warning her of Hamlet's advances.
• Polonius then gives Laertes advice about how to act.
• THEN he gives advice to Ophelia, again, warning her about Hamlet.

Key quotes:

• "Do not sleep, but let me hear from you…