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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Claudius Quotes

The chameleon’s dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed; you cannot feed capons so.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2. Hamlet to Claudius, says he is eating the chameleon’s dish, just air. The word "air" is a pun on "heir" and suggests Hamlet’s dissatisfaction over Claudius succeeding to the throne instead of him. He is also suggesting that the air he’s eating is crammed with Claudius’ empty promises, not enough to feed capons (fat chickens) on.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2. Hamlet to Claudius, as the Player Villain Lucianus enters to pour the poison into the ear of the Player King, during the play-within-a-play. This is the one crucial change that Hamlet makes to the script for the re-enactment of his father’s murder. Hamlet is Claudius’ nephew, so he is foreshadowing that Claudius will die in revenge.

What! frighted with false fire?

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2. Hamlet asks this of Claudius, when Ophelia announces "The king rises," just it gets to the part of the play where the Player King is poisoned. It is obvious Claudius is displeased and appears to betray his guilt in the poisoning of King Hamlet. The murder of the king in the play has startled Claudius enough for him to stop the play. Hamlet’s remark is ironic because he and the audience know exactly why Claudius is acting the way he is but Hamlet must play ignorant and continue to appear mad.

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2. Hamlet to Horatio when a disturbed Claudius leaps from his seat, calls for lights, and quickly rush away from a play enacting the poisoning of a king. For Hamlet it is confirmation of Claudius’ guilt in the poisoning of his father.

For me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2. Hamlet says this after Guildenstern confides that Claudius is "distempered…with choler" (suffering from biliousness) after watching The Murder of Gonzago. Hamlet suggests his cure (exposing his crime) would make the King even sicker.

‘Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood.
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2. Hamlet says it is now nighttime, when dark deeds are typically committed and evil prowls the world, and he can now murder Claudius to revenge his father’s murder.

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘it,
A brother’s murder.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3. Claudius confesses to being morally diseased and murdering his brother, the first and oldest "curse". This is a reference to the biblical story of Cain who killed his brother Abel. Using a metaphor, he compares his crime to something foul that smells all the way to heaven.

O wretched state, o bosom black as death!

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3. Claudius shows guilt at the murder of the King Hamlet. His "wretched state" implies melancholy, an emotion that he doesn’t normally express, suggesting that he may be feeling suicidal. His "bosom black as death" comment shows he acknowledges the corruption inside of him and damage he has brought to Denmark.

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I’ll do ‘t. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann’d:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3. Hamlet contemplates killing Claudius to exact revenge for his father’s murder, now that he has the opportunity. But he is overwhelmed by his indecisiveness and does what he does best – he procrastinates. Killing Claudius while he is praying and asking for forgiveness for his sins would send him to heaven, which is not his idea of revenge, Hamlet feels.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3. Claudius admits that he has not been praying in earnest, when asking God for forgiveness for his brother’s murder. His words reach to heaven, but his thought are in hell. Ironically Hamlet has just decided not to kill Claudius during prayer because he believes this would despatch his uncle straight to heaven. But he doesn’t realize Claudius’ prayer for forgiveness is false.

GERTRUDE: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
HAMLET: Mother, you have my father much offended.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4. Hamlet’s mother rebukes Hamlet for offending his father (step-father Claudius). But Hamlet turns her words back on her by accusing her of offending his real father (old Hamlet).

See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4. Hamlet shows his mother a painting of King Hamlet. He compares him metaphorically to some very impressive figures from classical mythology, the Titan Hyperion, king of the gods in Roman mythology Jove, Roman god of war Mars and the messenger god Mercury. Hamlet then points to a picture of Claudius and tells her "Here is your husband; like a mildew’d ear."

A murderer and a villain;
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4. Hamlet unmasks Claudius to Gertrude as a murderer who stole the crown and kingdom and is not worth a fraction of her previous husband. He is trying to torture his mother with guilt.

A king of shreds and patches.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4. Hamlet labels his uncle Claudius, who has usurped the throne, as a ragtag King.

Should have kept short, restrained and out of haunt,
This mad young man.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 1. Following Hamlet’s killing of Polonius, Claudius says to Gertrude he will be the one blamed for Hamlet’s actions and that Hamlet’s liberty is full of threats to them all. He is about to hatch a plot to send him off to England to his death.

But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of Life.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 1. Claudius describes Hamlet’s madness as a foul disease that he neglected to deal with. Because he didn’t want to admit that Hamlet was mad, Claudius says that he did nothing about it, and so the problem grew worse.

But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet Act 4, Scene 1. Claudius tells Gertrude that they will send Hamlet away to England so that they can explain about his slaying of Polonious. Claudius makes out that he is trying to protect Hamlet. What he omits is that he is having Hamlet shipped to England to be executed, because he fears him and thinks that he is a danger to him.

Friends both, go join you with some further aid. Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, and from his mother’s closet hath he dragged him. Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body to the into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 1. Claudius tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to find Hamlet and retrieve the body of Polonius and take it to the chapel.

Oh come away,
My soul is full of discord and dismay.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 1. Claudius is shocked and unsettled after the killing of Polonius by Hamlet, who mistook Polonius for Claudius. Speaking here to Gertrude, Claudius expresses his worries that the slaying could hurt his reputation.

Take you me for a sponge.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 2. Spoken by Rosencrantz. Hamlet compares Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to sponges, saying Claudius is only using them and will discard them when he is done. They have been asking where Hamlet hid Polonius’ body.

Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 3. For a worried Claudius, outed by Hamlet as his father’s killer, desperate diseases (like Hamlet) are best healed by desperate measures, or they won’t be cured at all. Thus he hatches a plot to get Hamlet out of Denmark and have him killed.

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 3. Hamlet reminds the King of his mortality and he will end up a feast for the worms, foreshadowing that the death of his father will be revenged by the death of his murderer Claudius.

Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 3. Hamlet to Claudius, on how death is the great equalizer. A king is eaten by worms and a beggar can fish with one of those worms and eat the fish that fed on that worm. Claudius’ killing by Hamlet in revenge for King Hamlet’s murder is being foreshadowed here.

In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i’ the other place yourself.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 3. This is Hamlet’s reply to Claudius, who inquires about the location of Polonius’ body. Hamlet is in effect telling the king to go to hell. Threatening comments like this convince Claudius that Hamlet is a threat to him that must be eliminated.

You shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 3. This is Hamlet’s reply after King Claudius asks where is Polonius. The prince tells him that if Polonius is not found within a month, the King will smell his rotting corpse as he goes up the stairs into the main hall. This suggests that the body is in the halls of the castle.

Do it, England.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 3. In this soliloquy Claudius is speaking to the King of England, hoping that the letter he has secretly conveyed will result in the English King executing Hamlet. He has lied to his wife Gertrude and Hamlet about this, suggesting istead that he is sending Hamlet away to England to protect him from any harm he may face after killing Polonius.

For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 3. Claudius says Hamlet has afflicted him like a disease. The cure is Hamlet’s death. The King sends Hamlet to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and orders in a sealed letter that Hamlet be killed when he arrives there. But Hamlet gets wise to plot me and lives to fight another day.

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 4. Hamlet says that everything he encounters seems to be accusing him for not taking revenge on his uncle Claudius.

From this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 4. Hamlet realizes that his father has been murdered, his uncle is the murderer, and his mother is living in an incestuous marriage. So he vows to think of nothing else but his bloody revenge against his uncle.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5. Claudius to Gertrude on the litany of suffering they have to bear, Polonius slain, Hamlet gone and Ophelia losing her mind.

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