Shakespeare for the Seeker of Quotes

I am discovering that I am obsessed with quotes--I love knowing their source, their context, what the have come to mean. While reading these plays, the oft-quoted lines are the ones that jump out at me first, and I love trying to figure out why they have become famous, or why certain gems of wisdom that strike me are not famous. Since we have all just read the play (and because this is a post about Hamlet) the source and context will be familiar to all, so I will not rehearse them here. But the rest of this post will be my thoughts and the thoughts of others about lines that caught my attention, especially why they have or have not become oft-quoted.

'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father;

But, you must know, your father lost a father;

That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound,

In filial obligation, for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: but to persevere

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;

Famous because it is so outrageous, and so condemning of its speaker. A reader definitely begins to sympathize with Hamlet and despise Claudius.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

Famous for its poetic value? Certainly not because of it's broad application.

Polonious' speach:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be...

to thine ownself be true...

Famous for the gems of wisdom it contains (ironic, considering the talk he gives his daughter just moments later, lacking any kind of good wisdom.)

I do not set my life at a pin's fee,

And for my soul, what can it do to that,

Being a thing immortal as itself?

So this is one that is less famous--in googling the phrase I found other people have analyzed it and thought about it, but mostly they were just explaining what it meant--basically Hamlet is saying that he values his life as much as the cost of a pin, which is practically nothing, or in other words, that he doesn't value his life. The whole thing struck me as a poetic expression of bravery and a good lesson for all. Various sources I read pointed to it as revealing Hamlet's character--that he does not value his life (also citing his later contemplation of suicide), or that he is a very moral person who considers the value and immortality of his soul. How you interpret this quote depends on how you view Hamlet--is he a depressed, suicidal person, or a morally bound God-fearing noble person, trying to do what is right? This passage makes me think of Acts 20:24, " neither count I my blife dear unto myself", and I tend to think Hamlet more the latter, not that he doesn't value his life, but that he understands eternity and that this life is short and the events thereof less important by comparison.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Now, compared to the profound lines I just analyzed, such a quaint phrase seems trivial by comparison. Why on earth is this one famous? It has come to be used all over to indicate that something is wrong, particularly referring to corruption at an upper level, but why such a phrase has found such common use in our vernacular is beyond me. Spark notes and a couple other sources I looked at explains it in the following way,

"This line is spoken by Marcellus in Act I, scene iv (67), as he and Horatio debate whether or not to follow Hamlet and the ghost into the dark night. The line refers both to the idea that the ghost is an ominous omen for Denmark and to the larger theme of the connection between the moral legitimacy of a ruler and the health of the state as a whole. The ghost is a visible symptom of the rottenness of Denmark created by Claudius’s crime."

but this still does not satisfy me.

Brevity is the soul of wit

I had no idea this phrase, which has become a proverb, originated from Shakespeare. What a gift to the English language! I think the explanation for its fame is self-evident.

Words, words, words

Enough said.

That's as far as I have time for right now. The following are the other quotes I picked out while reading that stood out to me...perhaps in a subsequent blog post I will finish analyzing them. But the fact that so many famous quotes have come out of one play really says a lot for Hamlet, and the universality of Shakespeare...

For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in

faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in

action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the

beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what

is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman

neither,

To be or not to be...

Get thee to a nunnery!

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

The lady protests too much, methinks.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio;