Claudius Quotes

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe…
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy, –
With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole, –
Taken to wife. Nor have we herein barr’d
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2. Claudius’ first appearance depicts him giving a speech to Queen Gertrude, Hamlet, Polonius and other attendants, that is full of startling hypocrisy. He orders everyone to mourn deeply the death of his brother, the former King Hamlet. He justifies his marriage to his “sometime sister” and King Hamlet’s widow Gertrude and downplays any immorality people may see in it. The audience is not yet aware of the truth of King Hamlet’s murder (by Claudius it will be revealed), and the hypocrisy of Claudius who is not actually mourning King Hamlet’s death. It is an irony to hear him refer to "our dead brother", when he in fact killed him.

‘Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father:
…but to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; ’tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool’d.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2. Claudius mockingly labels Hamlet’s excessive grief for his father as “unmanly.” It goes against God’s wishes and demonstrates a soft heart and uneducated mind, he tells the prince.

Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply:
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the king’s rouse the heavens all bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2. Claudius says this after Hamlet promises his mother Gertrude that he will remain in Denmark and not go back to school in Wittenberg. The King undertakes to celebrate Hamlet’s decision to stay with festivities, drinking toasts and canon fire. Happy that he can keep a close eye on Hamlet, Claudius is good at hiding his villainy behind a mask of false sincerity and flattery, as he does in this passage.

So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2. Hamlet says that the his father was a far superior king to his uncle. He was so caring and loving towards his mother that he kept the wind from blowing too roughly on her face. Using metaphor and allusion, he compares old Hamlet to the Greek god of light Hyperion and Claudius to a satyr, a woodland horse-like creature that engaged in debauchery and revelry.

But to my mind, – though I am native here
And to the manner born, – it is a custom
More honour’d in the breach than the observance.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4. Hamlet is talking about the King’s drinking party, during which he will stay up late carousing, dancing and drinking German wine. The prince feels that the custom of the Danes drinking excessively is one they would be better off abandoning than observing. The passage suggests an air of corruption hanging over the royal palace of Elsinore.

‘Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5. The Ghost reveals to Hamlet that his uncle Claudius murdered Hamlet’s father, by poisoning him while he was asleep. He invokes Biblical imagery from the Book of Genesis here, comparing Claudius to the snake in the garden of Eden that caused Adam and Eve’s fall from grace. The people of Denmark have been led to believe that King Hamlet was killed by a poisonous snake bite, this is the biggest lie of all in Hamlet and told so that Claudius could have the crown and Queen and not pay any consequences. The Ghost exposes the falseness and hypocrisy of King Claudius’ court at Elsinore.

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, –
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce! – won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5. The Ghost of Hamlet’s father is talking about his brother Claudius, expressing deep anger towards him for marrying the old king’s widow and convincing a seemingly virtuous queen to give in to his shameful lust. The hypocrisy and falseness of Elsinore and its newly minted King Claudius are laid bare.

O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables, – meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain:
At least I’m sure it may be so in Denmark.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5. Hamlet is enraged after the Ghost’s revelation that his father was murdered by his own brother Claudius, who took the crown and Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, as his Queen. He describes his mother as wicked, and Claudius as a smiling villain. Hamlet’s comment of how one can smile and be a villain is a perfect example of how people can be two-faced and hypocritical and hide their true nature from the world.

I have heard,
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2. Hamlet has heard that guilty people watching a play have been so affected by the performance that they have confessed their crimes. So he decides to put on such a play for his uncle, to test the truth of the Ghost’s claim that he is his father’s murderer.

The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2. Hamlet wants to gather more evidence on whether Claudius is guilty of murdering his father, as the Ghost has claimed. So he uses theater to assess the truth and test the guilt of the King. He plans to stage a play about a similar murder and watch his uncle’s reaction to it. An example of dramatic irony, as Claudius, along with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern know nothing of Hamlet’s plan to confirm his suspicions about the King.

Oh, ’tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
O heavy burden!

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1. When Polonius says that people act as if they were devoted to God in order to hide their sins, this strikes a nerve with Claudius. This passage is Claudius’ first admission of guilt in the play, likely brought about by the lies piling up all around him. He admits his hypocrisy too, as he speaks of the terrible things he has done and hidden with his "painted word" – lies and deceptions. He has been trying to legitimize his rule by seeming honest, when he is really not. This foreshadows Claudius’ anguished soliloquy in Act 3, Scene 3, when he tries in vain to pray for repentance.

Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2. Hamlet warmly praises Horatio, just before The Mousetrap play-within-a-play is about to begin. Hamlet trusts his friend so much that he confides to him the secret purpose of the play. It contains a scene mirroring the circumstances of Hamlet’s father’s murder, as claimed by the Ghost. Hamlet asks Horatio to watch Claudius’ reaction to see if he shows any signs of guilt.
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