1. Hamlet’s descent or Hamlet’s ruse?
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Hamlet’s descent or Hamlet’s ruse?

2. Act 1, Scene 4 HAMLET 63 It will not speak; then I will follow it.
      HORATIO  64   Do not, my lord.
      HAMLET  64                                 Why, what should be the fear?  65   I do not set my life at a pin's fee;  66   And for my soul, what can it do to that,  67   Being a thing immortal as itself?  68   It waves me forth again: I'll follow it.
      HORATIO  69   What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,  70   Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff  71   That beetles o'er his base into the sea,  72   And there assume some other horrible form,  73   Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason  74   And draw you into madness? think of it:  75   The very place puts toys of desperation,  76   Without more motive, into every brain  77   That looks so many fathoms to the sea  78   And hears it roar beneath.
Horatio believes that the Ghost is not Hamlet's father in the form of a ghost, but a spirit in the form of Hamlet's father. That spirit could instantly take on another shape or lure Hamlet to the edge of a cliff, where the sight of the depth "so many fathoms to the sea" puts "toys of desperation into every brain."

3. Act 1, Scene 5 HAMLET 6 Speak; I am bound to hear.
      GHOST   7   So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
      HAMLET   8   What?
      GHOST   9   I am thy father's spirit,  10   Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,  11   And for the day confined to fast in fires,  12   Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature  13   Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid  14   To tell the secrets of my prison-house,  15   I could a tale unfold whose lightest word  16   Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,  17   Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,  18   Thy knotted and combined locks to part  19   And each particular hair to stand on end,  20   Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
The Ghost is telling Hamlet why he cannot reveal the secrets of his "prison-house"--purgatory. It is implied that the story of the Ghost's punishments would drive mere humans mad

4. Scene 1, Act 5
"I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on" Hamlet warns Horatio and Marcellus. In the course of swearing them to secrecy about the Ghost, Hamlet adds that they can't so much as hint that they know anything, even if he should act "strange or odd."
Hamlet never says why he might act strange, but pretended madness was a widely-used plot device in the revenge tragedy of Shakespeare's time. In those plays, the revenger acted crazy so that his targets wouldn't know what he was up to until the minute before he killed them.

5. Act 2, Scene 1
OPHELIA  72   O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!
      POLONIUS  73   With what, i' the name of God?
      OPHELIA  74   My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,  75   Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;  76   No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,  77   Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ankle;  78   Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;  79   And with a look so piteous in purport  80   As if he had been loosed out of hell  81   To speak of horrors—he comes before me.
      POLONIUS  82   Mad for thy love?
      OPHELIA  82                                 My lord, I do not know;  83   But truly, I do fear it.
      POLONIUS  83                                       What said he?
Polonius asks Ophelia, when she tells him about Hamlet's strange visit to her closet. It isn't really a question, because Polonius jumps to his conclusion and then sticks with it. For the rest of the play he is sure that Hamlet has been driven over the edge because Ophelia (on her father's orders) won't see him anymore.

6.       OPHELIA  84   He took me by the wrist and held me hard;  85   Then goes he to the length of all his arm;  86   And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,  87   He falls to such perusal of my face  88   As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so;  89   At last, a little shaking of mine arm  90   And thrice his head thus waving up and down,  91   He raised a sigh so piteous and profound  92   As it did seem to shatter all his bulk  93   And end his being: that done, he lets me go:  94   And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd,  95   He seem'd to find his way without his eyes;  96   For out o' doors he went without their helps,  97   And, to the last, bended their light on me.

7. POLONIUS 98 Come, go with me: I will go seek the king
      POLONIUS  98   Come, go with me: I will go seek the king.  99   This is the very ecstasy of love, 100   Whose violent property fordoes itself 101   And leads the will to desperate undertakings 102   As oft as any passion under heaven 103   That does afflict our natures. I am sorry. 104   What, have you given him any hard words of late?
      OPHELIA 105   No, my good lord, but, as you did command, 106   I did repel his letters and denied 107   His access to me.

8. POLONIUS 107 That hath made him mad
      POLONIUS 107                                 That hath made him mad. 108   I am sorry that with better heed and judgment 109   I had not quoted him: I fear'd he did but trifle, 110   And meant to wreck thee; but, beshrew my jealousy! 111   By heaven, it is as proper to our age 112   To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions 113   As it is common for the younger sort 114   To lack discretion. Come, go we to the king: 115   This must be known; which, being kept close, might move 116   More grief to hide than hate to utter love. 117   Come.
Polonius' idea has its roots in a popular idea of the time, which was that frustrated love brings on a melancholy that is a near neighbor to madness. Compare Ophelia's description of Hamlet with Benvolio's description of Romeo, in the first scene of Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo was in love with the never-seen Rosaline. Romeo, too, was melancholy, and sighed, and generally acted strange.

9. Act 2, Scene 2
And he, repulsed--a short tale to make-- Fell into a sadness, then into a fast, Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension, Into the madness wherein now he raves, And all we mourn for.
The King and Queen are almost persuaded, but still doubtful, and so Polonius boasts that "I will find / Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed / Within the centre." The King asks how his theory may be tested, and Polonius offers to "loose" Ophelia to Hamlet while he and the King hide behind a curtain to overhear their conversation.

10. Act 2, Scene 2
POLONIUS [Aside.] 205   Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.
Polonius devises that they spy in secret on a private meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia
He and Claudius hide while Hamlet comes in and says all kinds of horrible things to Ophelia
Polonius is convinced that Hamlet is mad for love and Claudius is now convinced that Hamlet is not mad and needs to be taken out of the picture
Polonius suggests that they spy on another private conversation between the queen, this time, and Hamlet.
This is where Hamlet kills Polonius, not knowing who hides behind the curtain
Famous phrase “Method to my madness”

11. Act 3, Scene 1 "O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!"
She remembers that he had been the perfect man, a soldier who was charming, educated, handsome, and a prince of whom great things were expected. It's not too much to guess that she hoped, even expected, to be his wife and eventually Queen.

12. Act 3, Scene 1 "Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.“
Claudius fears what Hamlet could do in his madness since he is so loved by the kingdom.

13. Act 3, Scene 2 "my wit's diseased“
Hamlet says this to Guildenstern who he is mocking. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were once considered friends of Hamlet but have become spies for Claudius. Hamlet no longer trusts them and has them killed.

14. Act 3, Scene 3
"I like him not, nor stands it safe with us / To let his madness range" says the King to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, just before he tells them that they are to take Hamlet to England. Two scenes earlier the King commented to Polonius that "what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, / Was not like madness but now the situation is different. He has good reason to think that Hamlet knows that he killed King Hamlet. He wants to get rid of Hamlet, and Hamlet's "madness" provides a good excuse.

15. Act 3, Scene 4
"Alas, he's mad!" says the Queen when Hamlet speaks to the Ghost, whom she cannot see. Later in the scene Hamlet denies that he is mad and sarcastically urges his mother to let the King, "Make you to ravel all this matter out, / That I essentially am not in madness, / But mad in craft" She promises that she will say nothing.

16. Act 5, Scene 2 Hamlet, asking Laertes' pardon, says
"you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd / With a sore distraction"
This is just before the fencing match, and Hamlet, not suspecting anything, is trying to gain Laertes' good will. Hamlet even goes so far as to say that he himself is the victim of his own madness. Surely, Hamlet is lying.

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