Act I
Who said it? To whom?
"Murder most foul."
Ghost to Hamlet
Who said it? To whom?
"Brevity is the soul of wit..."
Polonius to the King & Queen
Who said it? To whom?
"To be or not to be, that is the question..."
Hamlet to himself (in a soliloquy)
Who said it? To whom?
"O thou vile King,/Give me my father"
Laertes to Claudius
Who said it? To whom?
"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him ... a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."
Hamlet to Yorick's skull.
Who said it? To whom?
“How strange or odd some’er I bear myself/ As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/ To put an antic disposition on…”
Hamlet to Horatio
Who said it? To whom?
“O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”
Hamlet to himself (audience)
Who said it? To whom?
What does it mean?
“O’ my offense is rank, it smells to heaven; it hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘t"
Claudius to himself (audience)
He is partially regretting his murder, or at least admitting that it's awful
Who said it and to whom?
What does it mean?
"O, from this time forth/ My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!"
Hamlet to himself (audience)
He's resolved to actually do something to avenge his father's murder.
Who said it? To whom? Where?
"Forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love Make up my sum.”
Hamlet to Laertes at Ophelia's grave
Who said it? To whom?
Tis unmanly grief. It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, a mind impatient, An understanding simple and unschooled.
Claudius to Hamlet
Who said it? To whom? About whom?
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."
Polonius to himself (as an aside), talking about Hamlet.
Who said it? To whom?
What does it mean?
"Let me be cruel, not unnatural; /I will speak daggers to her, but use none."
Hamlet to himself
He is going to lash out at his mom by speaking to her in a very mean way, but he will not physically harm her.
Who said it? To whom?
"…this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, / It may be death"
Laertes to Claudius
Who said it? To whom?
“Where be your gibes now? your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?”
Hamlet to Yorick's skull
Who said it? To whom?
What is the occasion?
"This above all, to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."
Polonius to Laertes
He is giving advice to his son before Laertes leave for France.
Who said it? To whom?
What does it mean?
“You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal—except my life, except my life, except my life, except my life”
Hamlet to Polonius
He's *very* willing to depart from Polonius, and is also suicidal
Who said it? To whom?
What is the occasion?
What does it mean?
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
Queen to Hamlet
They are watching the play; after the player queen swears her undying loyalty to her husband Hamlet asks Gertrude what she thinks of the play.
Gertrude suspects her declarations of faithfulness are either for show or dishonest. In either case, the player queen is false to her husband. Gertrude probably also sees herself reflected in the character.
Who said it and to whom?
What is he convincing him to do?
"was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, a face without a heart?"
Claudius to Laertes
He's convincing him to take revenge on Hamlet.
Who said it? To whom?
What is the occasion?
What does it mean?
"Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay."
Hamlet to Horatio
Hamlet is discussing the fate of all men (including the powerful) to Horatio while in the cemetery.
Even a great man like Julius Caesar (the ruler of the vast Roman Empire) will be reduced to dirt (clay) after he dies and decomposes, becoming part of the earth.
Who said it? To whom?
What is the occasion and what does it mean?
"Do not as some ungracious pastors do/ Show the steep and thorny way to heaven whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,/Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads."
Ophelia to Laertes
He is lecturing her to stay away from Hamlet before he leaves for France, and this is her reaction.
She is comparing Laertes to a priest that doesn't practice what he preaches; she cautions him to avoid the trap of giving out moral advice that he can't heed himself.
Who said it? To whom?
What is the occasion?
What does it mean?
"The play's the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."
Hamlet to himself (in a soliloquy)
Shortly after speaking to the players about putting on a performance, Hamlet is reviewing his plan to determine if Claudius indeed killed his father.
By observing Claudius's reaction to the play that mirrors an action he is possibly guilty of, Hamlet will be able to determine if Claudius is responsible for his father's death or if Claudius has a clear conscience.
Who said it? To whom?
What is the occasion?
What does it mean?
"A villain kills my father, and for that /I, his sole son, do this villain sent/ To heaven? Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge."
Hamlet to himself
He has just saw Claudius praying, an easy target to kill
Hamlet is about to kill Claudius to exact his revenge, but then he realizes that if Claudius is repenting, then Claudius will go to heaven and it will be more like a reward than a punishment since his own father is purging away his sins.
Who said it? To whom?
What is the occasion?
What does it mean?
"...her garments, heavy with their drink, /Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay / To muddy death"
Gertrude to Claudius and Laertes
Ophelia is dead and the Queen has come to report it
It means that Ophelia fell in the water and once her clothing got saturated with the water, she was unable to bring herself to the surface for air and incidentally ended up drowning.
Who said it? To whom?
What is the occasion?
“Thy mother’s poisoned. I can no more. The Kind, the King’s to blame.”
Laertes to Hamlet, admitting his part in Claudius's vengeance scheme.