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    Hamlet: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
    Hamlet: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
    Hamlet: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
    Ebook260 pages

    Hamlet: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

    By William Shakespeare

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    About this ebook

    "Hamlet: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" by William Shakespeare is a timeless masterpiece that delves into the complexities of human nature and the pursuit of vengeance. The play follows young Prince Hamlet, mourning his father's death and angered by his mother's hasty remarriage to his uncle, Claudius, who now sits on the throne. When the ghost of his father reveals he was murdered by Claudius, Hamlet is consumed by the need for revenge. Torn between duty and despair, he grapples with existential questions, musing on life's uncertainties and the nature of existence. Shakespeare's eloquent verse weaves a tale of deception, betrayal, and tragic consequences as Hamlet's quest for justice leads to a gripping climax, with a trail of deaths and a kingdom in turmoil. A timeless exploration of the human psyche, "Hamlet" remains a literary masterpiece, resonating with audiences for centuries.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInteractive Media
    Release dateAug 15, 2012
    ISBN9781909175631
    Hamlet: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

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    Reviews for Hamlet

    4/5

    6,555 ratings70 reviews

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    • 4/5
      More of the action seemed to happen off-stage than on! Excellent notes, and again many familiar lines I have seen referenced another literature and in everyday speech. Most of the cast dead by the end...
    • 4/5
      My favorite of Shakespeare's plays(that I've read). Is there a more interesting character than Hamlet? The amazing this about this play is that I know the end from the very beginning, but I'm always compelled to read on.
    • 5/5
      Hamlet was the original diva, mmhhmm.
    • 5/5
      I’ve seen quite a few Shakespeare productions and have read several other works. Surprisingly, in all my years, Hamlet has escaped me. Don’t ask me how—despite never missing a day of high school, and attaining a degree in English and a Master’s in writing, and being alive—I have never read or seen a production of Hamlet. I decided to remedy that.No surprises here. It’s typical Shakespeare. Betrayal, mistaken identities, honor, incest, duels, poison, death, death, and death. The story itself didn’t make much of an impact on me, but what did was the language. Of all of Shakespeare I am familiar with, this one stood out as having the most memorable lines. Sure, I knew the whole “To be or not to be” monologue was present, but there are so many others that were not only familiar, but memorable with reason. An obvious classic despite being very run-of-the-mill in terms of Shakespeare’s work.
    • 4/5
      Possibly one of the only tragedies Shakespeare wrote that I can really, truly say I enjoyed. I really can't say much about it without ruining it though, so I'll just say READ IT (avoid the movie until you've done so though. I really like Kenneth Branagh, but it's just a little overkill.)
    • 5/5
      While this book is incredibly depressing, the story is one that holds your attention the entire time. Shakespeare seems to be good at doing that...
    • 5/5
      Oh, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet. Get thee to a nunnery.
    • 5/5
      I have loved this play since I first read it in high school. I find it both very tragic (but in a heroic kind of way) and very funny. I remember laughing at the fishwife dialogue in the library and my class mate thinking I was terribly odd. It doesn't matter, I still think this book is beautiful to read and very funny.
    • 4/5
      I refuse to offer up a literary review on Shakespeare. I wouldn't presume. However, I will say that I enjoyed this dark story. Watching a man descend into madness, yet still retain enough sanity to accomplish his purpose is drama at its best. Half the fun for me is finding out where all the quotes one hears all the time come from.
    • 5/5
      Read it in Sixth Form and it spoiled me for Julius Ceaser.It is a wonderful complex read. And trying to discover all the layers is part of the fun.At its base, Hamlet is a prince called to avenge his late father the murdered King of Denmark. Yet it's not as simple as that. Hamlet's birthright has him in turmoil with himself, and then there is the issue of his mother and her new husband, the King's brother.A modern version would be tacky and full of soap opera bachannal...but Shakesphere's play is a serious psychological study of a young man who should be King.
    • 3/5
      To commemorate in my own small way the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death, I decided to read Hamlet for the first time in my life. While one of his greatest plays, I don't enjoy this as much as Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet, which I studied at school and have enjoyed also in adulthood. There are some amazing scenes, though, and the flow of phrases which have entered the English language from this play alone comes thick and fast.
    • 4/5
      One of the greatest works ever written.
    • 3/5
      READ IN ENGLISH

      To be or not to be; that is the question

      That's probably one of the best known parts of Western literature.
      I never really like Shakespeare (okay, I only read Romeo and Juliet and my school forced me to do so), but things have changed a bit lately after I went to see a theatre production of The Tempest in London's Globe Theatre.
      So, why not try and read Hamlet? (The Tempest will be read as well, as soon as I have the time to do so)
      Indeed, and I liked the play. It was still a relatively easy read and great for some winter evenings.
    • 4/5
      Good solid Shakespeare read. A bit too much of a "he did, she did" plot at times.
    • 5/5
      Shakespeare is not easy to understand. This version tries to make it easier for you by defining many archaic terms and spacing out the lines so that it doesn't look like a dense book, and so that you can add your own annotations. I read this in my high school senior English class (albeit with the CliffNotes edition, which has handy explanatory summaries but fewer definitions), and I have to say that the play is easier to appreciate with a teacher pointing out Shakespeare's literary techniques and explaining the situations.
    • 2/5
      This was a reasonably enjoyable Shakespearean play. It's kind of wild. It's not long, but not the shortest of his plays, either.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite Shakespeare works.
    • 5/5
      Hamlet's an amazingly dynamic and complex play about the lure of death and the struggle against inaction. Wonderful and dark and always a pleasure to read
    • 3/5
      By far the best Shakespeare play ever, and that's saying a lot. It's just so incredibly complex. Hamlet's soliloquies give insight into the human psyche that even most novels, let alone dramas, can't match. And Horatio just might be my favorite Shakespeare character of all time,
    • 5/5
      Shakespeare is good to teach in any classroom, because it is so timeless. The struggles Hamlet faces throughout this play, wondering who he is and what he should do, are things that everyone goes through at some point in their life. Students could really see character development and inner struggles within a character while reading Hamlet. It could also be a good way to get students to interact with a text, because it is a play and they could act it out.
    • 5/5
      After King Lear, this is one of my favorites. Hamlet, in short, is the Lion King. Rather, I should say The Lion King is Hamlet. My reassurance of Shakespeare's credibility and talent is purely unnecessary so a review is kind of pointless. But if you liked the Lion King, attempt Shakespeare's version. It has more blood and wit.
    • 5/5
      The Tormented Boy who spawned an entire genus of Tormented Boys. My Ur-story.
    • 4/5
      It feels odd to be giving Shakespeare a rating in stars - who am I to judge?After many many years, I re-read Hamlet in a fine edition by Signature Shakespeare. This is a beautifully produced book and has a helpful layout with the original text supplemented with meanings of obscure words and suggested explanations for passages. It was a treat to read, and improved my appreciation of the text.I can't see it making it big in prime time - all the lead characters end up dead, but it is a tragedy!Read February 2015.
    • 3/5
      I read this play once during my senior year of high school, and have yet to read it since, but something about it makes me like it. Scandal amongst royal families will ALWAYS be interesting, I suppose.
    • 5/5
      My fav editions of the Bard.
    • 5/5
      It read it on my Great Books class in college, at first I thought it was going to be boring but it is very interesting. I have read it a few times and this edition was for sure the best one.
    • 5/5
      Classic Shakespeare tragedy.
    • 3/5
      Really enjoyed, and could relate to the performance done on DVD in 1996, and that is what recommended the play to me. Really interesting and moving.... it's hard to review something so integral to the classics, but as with all of shakespeare, it is best read simultaneous (the dreaded, read-and-pause) with a good adaption.

      Kenneth Branagh helped me appreciate Hamlet. Despite it's leangth, it is lush and fantastical in the most bearable way. A great play.
    • 4/5
      the dark prince of Denmark. so emotional. an absolute classic as important as Oedipus Rex.
    • 5/5
      Life changing. Truly a must read for anyone and everyone. While I know plays are meant to be seen, I honestly think you must create your own interpretation.

    Book preview

    Hamlet - William Shakespeare

    cover.jpg

    William Shakespeare

    Hamlet

    The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

    Published by Sovereign

    This Edition

    First published in 2012

    Copyright © 2012 Sovereign

    ISBN: 9781909175631

    Contents

    CAST

    ACT I

    SCENE I. ELSINORE. A PLATFORM BEFORE THE CASTLE.

    SCENE II. A ROOM OF STATE IN THE CASTLE.

    SCENE III. A ROOM IN POLONIUS’ HOUSE.

    SCENE IV. THE PLATFORM.

    SCENE V. ANOTHER PART OF THE PLATFORM.

    ACT II

    SCENE I. A ROOM IN POLONIUS’ HOUSE.

    SCENE II. A ROOM IN THE CASTLE.

    ACT III

    SCENE I. A ROOM IN THE CASTLE.

    SCENE II. A HALL IN THE CASTLE.

    SCENE III. A ROOM IN THE CASTLE.

    SCENE IV. THE QUEEN’S CLOSET.

    ACT IV

    SCENE I. A ROOM IN THE CASTLE.

    SCENE II. ANOTHER ROOM IN THE CASTLE.

    SCENE III. ANOTHER ROOM IN THE CASTLE.

    SCENE IV. A PLAIN IN DENMARK.

    SCENE V. ELSINORE. A ROOM IN THE CASTLE.

    SCENE VI. ANOTHER ROOM IN THE CASTLE.

    SCENE VII. ANOTHER ROOM IN THE CASTLE.

    ACT V

    SCENE I. A CHURCHYARD.

    SCENE II. A HALL IN THE CASTLE.

    CAST

    Claudius, King of Denmark

    Hamlet, son to the late, and nephew to the present king

    Polonius, Lord Chamberlain

    Horatio, friend to Hamlet

    Laertes, son to Polonius

    Voltimand, Cornelius, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Osric, A Gentleman, courtiers

    A Priest

    Marcellus, Barnardo, officers

    Francisco, a soldier

    Reynaldo, servant to Polonius

    Players

    Two Clowns, grave-diggers

    Fortinbras, Prince of Norway

    A Captain

    English Ambassadors

    Gertrude, Queen of Denmark and mother to Hamlet

    Ophelia, daughter to Polonius

    Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants

    Ghost of Hamlet’s Father

    ACT I

    SCENE I. ELSINORE. A PLATFORM BEFORE THE CASTLE.

    FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO

    BERNARDO

    Who’s there?

    FRANCISCO

    Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

    BERNARDO

    Long live the king!

    FRANCISCO

    Bernardo?

    BERNARDO

    He.

    FRANCISCO

    You come most carefully upon your hour.

    BERNARDO

    ‘Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

    FRANCISCO

    For this relief much thanks: ‘tis bitter cold,

    And I am sick at heart.

    BERNARDO

    Have you had quiet guard?

    FRANCISCO

    Not a mouse stirring.

    BERNARDO

    Well, good night.

    If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

    The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

    FRANCISCO

    I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who’s there?

    Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

    HORATIO

    Friends to this ground.

    MARCELLUS

    And liegemen to the Dane.

    FRANCISCO

    Give you good night.

    MARCELLUS

    O, farewell, honest soldier:

    Who hath relieved you?

    FRANCISCO

    Bernardo has my place.

    Give you good night.

    Exit

    MARCELLUS

    Holla! Bernardo!

    BERNARDO

    Say,

    What, is Horatio there?

    HORATIO

    A piece of him.

    BERNARDO

    Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

    MARCELLUS

    What, has this thing appear’d again to-night?

    BERNARDO

    I have seen nothing.

    MARCELLUS

    Horatio says ‘tis but our fantasy,

    And will not let belief take hold of him

    Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:

    Therefore I have entreated him along

    With us to watch the minutes of this night;

    That if again this apparition come,

    He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

    HORATIO

    Tush, tush, ‘twill not appear.

    BERNARDO

    Sit down awhile;

    And let us once again assail your ears,

    That are so fortified against our story

    What we have two nights seen.

    HORATIO

    Well, sit we down,

    And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

    BERNARDO

    Last night of all,

    When yond same star that’s westward from the pole

    Had made his course to illume that part of heaven

    Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

    The bell then beating one,—

    Enter Ghost

    MARCELLUS

    Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

    BERNARDO

    In the same figure, like the king that’s dead.

    MARCELLUS

    Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

    BERNARDO

    Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

    HORATIO

    Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.

    BERNARDO

    It would be spoke to.

    MARCELLUS

    Question it, Horatio.

    HORATIO

    What art thou that usurp’st this time of night,

    Together with that fair and warlike form

    In which the majesty of buried Denmark

    Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

    MARCELLUS

    It is offended.

    BERNARDO

    See, it stalks away!

    HORATIO

    Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

    Exit Ghost

    MARCELLUS

    ‘Tis gone, and will not answer.

    BERNARDO

    How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:

    Is not this something more than fantasy?

    What think you on’t?

    HORATIO

    Before my God, I might not this believe

    Without the sensible and true avouch

    Of mine own eyes.

    MARCELLUS

    Is it not like the king?

    HORATIO

    As thou art to thyself:

    Such was the very armour he had on

    When he the ambitious Norway combated;

    So frown’d he once, when, in an angry parle,

    He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

    ‘Tis strange.

    MARCELLUS

    Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,

    With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

    HORATIO

    In what particular thought to work I know not;

    But in the gross and scope of my opinion,

    This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

    MARCELLUS

    Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,

    Why this same strict and most observant watch

    So nightly toils the subject of the land,

    And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,

    And foreign mart for implements of war;

    Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task

    Does not divide the Sunday from the week;

    What might be toward, that this sweaty haste

    Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:

    Who is’t that can inform me?

    HORATIO

    That can I;

    At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,

    Whose image even but now appear’d to us,

    Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

    Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride,

    Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet—

    For so this side of our known world esteem’d him—

    Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal’d compact,

    Well ratified by law and heraldry,

    Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands

    Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:

    Against the which, a moiety competent

    Was gaged by our king; which had return’d

    To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

    Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,

    And carriage of the article design’d,

    His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

    Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

    Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there

    Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes,

    For food and diet, to some enterprise

    That hath a stomach in’t; which is no other—

    As it doth well appear unto our state—

    But to recover of us, by strong hand

    And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands

    So by his father lost: and this, I take it,

    Is the main motive of our preparations,

    The source of this our watch and the chief head

    Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

    BERNARDO

    I think it be no other but e’en so:

    Well may it sort that this portentous figure

    Comes armed through our watch; so like the king

    That was and is the question of these wars.

    HORATIO

    A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.

    In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

    A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

    The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead

    Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:

    As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

    Disasters in the sun; and the moist star

    Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands

    Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:

    And even the like precurse of fierce events,

    As harbingers preceding still the fates

    And prologue to the omen coming on,

    Have heaven and earth together demonstrated

    Unto our climatures and countrymen.—

    But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

    Re-enter Ghost

    I’ll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!

    If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,

    Speak to me:

    If there be any good thing to be done,

    That may to thee do ease and grace to me,

    Speak to me:

    Cock crows

    If thou art privy to thy country’s fate,

    Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!

    Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life

    Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,

    For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,

    Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

    MARCELLUS

    Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

    HORATIO

    Do, if it will not stand.

    BERNARDO

    ‘Tis here!

    HORATIO

    ‘Tis here!

    MARCELLUS

    ‘Tis gone!

    Exit Ghost

    We do it wrong, being so majestical,

    To offer it the show of violence;

    For it is, as the air, invulnerable,

    And our vain blows malicious mockery.

    BERNARDO

    It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

    HORATIO

    And then it started like a guilty thing

    Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,

    The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,

    Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat

    Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,

    Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

    The extravagant and erring spirit hies

    To his confine: and of the truth herein

    This present object made probation.

    MARCELLUS

    It faded on the crowing of the cock.

    Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes

    Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,

    The bird of dawning singeth all night long:

    And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;

    The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

    No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

    So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.

    HORATIO

    So have I heard and do in part believe it.

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