HAMLET
Act II scene ii
1. MAKE TEN CONNECTIONS TO EXCERPT USING COMMENT BOXES. LABEL
them with ©
2. ASK FIVE QUESTIONS OF THE EXCERPT. Label
them with (?)
3. HIGHLIGHT TEN
VOCABULARY WORDS YOU DONŐT KNOW IN YELLOW.
4 DEFINE THE VOCABULARY WORDS. Write the definition at the end of the line after the inference.
5. HIGHLIGHT THREE
QUOTES THAT REVEAL CHARACTERIZATION IN TURQOISE. Discuss what is revealed
about the character at the end of the line.
Ay, so, God be wi' ye;
Exeunt
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and
peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous
that this player here,
But in a fiction, in
a dream of passion,
Could force his soul
so to his own conceit
That from her
working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes,
distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and
his whole function suiting
With forms to his
conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to
him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep
for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive
and the cue for passion
That I have? He
would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the
general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty
and appal the free,
Confound the
ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties
of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and
muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams,
unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing;
no, not for a king,
Upon whose property
and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was
made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me
villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard,
and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the
nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the
lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
'Swounds, I should
take it: for it cannot be
But I am
pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression
bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted
all the region kites
With this slave's
offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless,
treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am
I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a
dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my
revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore,
unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing,
like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh!
About, my brain! 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 proclaim'd
their malefactions;
For murder, though
it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous
organ. I'll have these players
Play something like
the murder of my father
Before mine uncle:
I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the
quick: if he but blench,
I know my course.
The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil:
and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing
shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness
and my melancholy,
As he is very potent
with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn
me: I'll have grounds
More relative than
this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch
the conscience of the king.
Exit