The Rotten State of Denmark - a Study of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Quotation Quest

(These are listed chronologically.)

1.	Who said it?
2.	When was it said?
3.	How is it relevant to the theme of corruption?

1.	"What art thou that usurp'st this time of night?" 
(Horatio, the ghost's appearance in I.i;  an omen of disorder)

2.	"This bodes some strange eruption to our state"
(Horatio; 1.i.; as above)

3.	"Our state to be disjoint and out of frame"
(Claudius; 1.2.; disorder in Elsinore)

4.	"How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of the earth"
(Hamlet; 1.2; his soliloquy which reflects his sadness at the hasty marriage of his mother, and death of his father)

5.	"Foul deeds will rise, / Though all earth o'erwhelm them, to men' eyes"
(Hamlet, final lines of Act 1 Scene 2; reference to the murder of his father which must be avenged)

6.	"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"
(Marcellus, Act 1 scene 4; referring to the omen of the ghost)

7.	"Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder"
(Ghost, Act scene 5; his murder is the cause of the chaos in court)

8.	"Meet it is I set it down / That one may smile, and smile and be a villain"
(Hamlet, Act 1 scene 5; referring to the deception practised by Claudius)

9.	"The time is out of joint.."
(Hamlet, Act 1 scene 5; all is not well and his destiny has been corrupted by the command to revenge)

10.	"I'll be brief.  Your noble son is mad."
(Polonius, Act 2 2; telling Claudius about Hamlet's madness - a symptom of the chaos and deception in court)

11.	"Denmark's a prison." / "A goodly one.."
(Hamlet, Act 2 scene 2; reflects the claustrophia he feels within the chaotic court)

12.	"Get thee to a nunnery.  Why, wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?"
(Hamlet, 3.1, to Ophelia - all women in his eyes are now corrupt, following his mother's marriage to C.)

13.	"O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven"
(Claudius;  3.3;  the murder of his brother is corrupt in God's eyes)  

14.	"Thou turnst my eyes into my very soul / And there I see such black and grained spots / As will not leave their tinct"
(Gertrude;  3.4; her guilt is evident at the corrupt nature of her marriage and  C.)

15.	"Disease desperate grown / By desperate appliance are reliev'd"
(Claudius; Act 4.3; commenting ironically on Hamlet's madness but could also be referring to the court's corruption)

16.	"O this is poison of deep grief:  it springs/All from her father's death"   
(Claudius; 4.5; commenting on Ophelia. Note the motif of poison; a victim of corruption)

© Ministry of Education, Wellington, New Zealand (First published 1998)