Hamlet Great Speeches 2

http://shakespeare.about.com/library/weekly/aa061500b.htm

Hamlet suspects his uncle of murdering his father to usurp the throne ( and his mother) . Though he wants revenge, He can't think of himself as a cold blooded killer. He condemns and insults himself for being a coward. He tries to work himself into a rage which then will impair his better judgement and let him commit cold blooded murder. This fails and he tries to stage a play which reenacts the crime his uncle has committed. Hamlet believes this will make his uncle reveal his crime.


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!

( I'm a coward. By now I should have slaughtered claudius and fed his intestines to the vultures )


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!

( Instead of killing him and avenging my fathers death, I'm sitting here weeping like a whore. )

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;


( I've heard that once their crime is enacted before them, those who are guilty have been so stricken that they have confessed all )

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'll do the same for claudius. I'll get him to watch a play enacting hsi crime and observe him. If he shows signs of guilt, I'll slay him )


.... I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.