Hamlet

Clichés from Hamlet

I went to see Hamlet a few months ago. It felt at times like being bombarded with clichés. The reason is that there are quite a few clichés – some of them routine, some of them a bit obscure perhaps – which began life in Hamlet. They weren’t clichés when Shakespeare wrote them. Here are a few of them:

Act

Scene

Line/s

Quote

1

1

6

For this relief much thanks

1

1

8

Not a mouse stirring

1

2

129

O that this too too solid flesh would melt

1

2

146

Frailty, thy name is woman

1

2

187

I shall not look upon his like again

1

2

229

More in sorrow than in anger

1

3

75

Neither a borrower nor a lender be

1

3

78

To thine own self be true

1

4

17

To the manner born

1

4

18

A custom more honoured in the breach than the observance

1

4

20

Angels and ministers of grace defend us

1

4

67

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

1

5

15

I could a tale unfold

1

5

27

Murder most foul

1

5

109

One may smile and smile and be a villain

1

5

168/
169

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy

1

5

189

The time is out of joint

2

2

91

Brevity is the soul of wit

2

2

206

Madness, yet there is method in it

2

2

250

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so

2

2

304

What a piece of work is a man!

2

2

380

I know a hawk from a handsaw

2

2

560

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba

2

2

605

The play’s the thing

3

1

58

To be, or not to be; that is the question (Txt version: 2B/-2B=?)

3

1

60

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

3

1

69

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil

3

1

81/82

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns

3

1

91/92

Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered

3

1

122

Get thee to a nunnery

3

2

22

To hold the mirror up to nature

3

2

219

The lady protests too much, methinks

3

2

226

The Mousetrap

3

4

162

I must be cruel only to be kind

4

5

71

Good night, sweet ladies

4

5

76/77

When sorrows come they come not single spies, but in battalions

5

1

180

Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio

5

1

290

The cat will mew, and dog will have his day

5

2

10/11

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends

Rough-hew them how we will

5

2

165

We defy augury

5

2

232

A hit, a very palpable hit

5

2

310

The rest is silence

5

2

312/3

Good night, sweet prince and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest

How many are familiar to you?

PB