1. What the heck is going on?
Act One, Scene Two
What the heck is going on?

2. What Is Going On?
KING: Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death / The memory be green, and that it us befitted / To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom / To be contracted in one brow of woe…

3. What Is Going On?
KING: Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death / The memory be green, and that it us befitted / To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom / To be contracted in one brow of woe… Translation: King Hamlet died quite recently and the memory is still fresh in our minds and hearts. We’re all very sad, etc., etc..

4. What Is Going On?
KING: …Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, / Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state, / Have we… Translation: She used to be my sister-in-law, but hey! Now we’re married! 9. jointress: a woman who owns property jointly with her husband.

5. What Is Going On?
KING: Have we (as ‘twere with a defeated joy, / With an auspicious and a dropping eye, / With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, / In equal scale weighing delight and dole) / Taken to wife. Translation: We’re both sad and happy at the same time. You know, because of the funeral and wedding thing. It’s both. We’re definitely both of these feelings.

6. What Is Going On?
KING: Have we (as ‘twere with a defeated joy, / With an auspicious and a dropping eye, / With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, / In equal scale weighing delight and dole) / Taken to wife. Translation: We’re both sad and happy at the same time. You know, because of the funeral and wedding thing. It’s both. We’re definitely both of these feelings.

7. What Is Going On?
KING: Now follows that you know. Young Fortinbras, / Holding a weak supposal of our worth / Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death / Our state to be disjoint and out of frame.. Translation: You know this part already, but Prince Fortinbras has a poor opinion of us and probably thinks that we’ve been weakened because of the recent death of my dear brother, the previous King.

8. What Is Going On?
KING: Now follows that you know. Young Fortinbras, / Holding a weak supposal of our worth / Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death / Our state to be disjoint and out of frame.. Translation: You know this part already, but Prince Fortinbras has a poor opinion of us and probably thinks that we’ve been weakened because of the recent death of my dear brother, the previous King.

9. What Is Going On?
KING: Colleagued with this dream of his advantage, / He hath not failed to pester us with message / Importing the surrender of those lands / Lost by his father… ATTACK! Actually, it’s more like this…

10. What Is Going On?
KING: Colleagued with this dream of his advantage, / He hath not failed to pester us with message / Importing the surrender of those lands / Lost by his father… ATTACK! Actually, it’s more like this…

11. What Is Going On?
KING: Thus much the business is: we have here writ / To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras, / Who, impotent and bedrid, scarcely hears / Of this his nephew’s purpose…and we here dispatch / You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand… [Giving them a paper.] Okay, so we’re sending letters BACK to Norway. Ha! Take that!

12. What Is Going On?
KING: And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you? / Blah, blah… Translation: That’s it, he wants to know what’s up with Laertes who clearly has a request of the King. He throws in there how important Polonius, Laertes’ father, is to the King.

13. What Is Going On?
Leartes: Your leave and favor to return to France, / From whence though willingly I came to Denmark / To show my duty in your coronation, / Yet now I must confess, that duty done, My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France / And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. Translation: He has done is duty by coming back for the coronation, but he wants to return to France and needs the King’s permission.

14. What Is Going On?
King: But now, my cousin Hamlet and my son— Hamlet: [Aside] A little more than kin and less than kind. Ooooh, burnnnn. Hamlet means that they are WAY TOO related and in an unnatural way. But “aside” means he’s muttering to himself. So…the audience gets it, but nobody else.

15. What Is Going On?
King: How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Hamlet: Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun.

16. What Is Going On?
King: How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Translation: Why are you so sad and gloomy? Hamlet: Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun. Translation: Shut up, I hate you. Real-ish translation: He’s taking the King’s words literally and responding in a snarky matter.

17. What Is Going On?
Queen: Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, / And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Stop being so sad. “Nighted color” means black colors, the clothes of those in mourning.

18. What Is Going On?
Queen: Good Hamlet, cast thy knighted color off, / And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not forever with thy vailed lids / Seek for thy noble father in the dust. Stop thinking about your dead (and noble) father. “In the dust” means buried in the ground.

19. What Is Going On?
Queen: ….Seek for thy noble father in the dust. / Thou know’st ‘tis common; all that lives must die, / Passing through nature to eternity. This is a fairly famous line. She’s trying to reassure him that this is the natural course of things.

20. What Is Going On?
Hamlet: Ay, madam, it is common. Queen: If it be, / Why seems it so particular with thee? Hamlet: SEEMS?! Yeah, I guess it SEEMS like I’m sad because I’m dressed like it, but I assure you that inside I’M SUPER SAD. Hamlet: But I have that within which passes show, / These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

21. What Is Going On?
King: ‘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…blah, blah, I’m an insensitive jerk…’Tis unmanly grief. Translation: Just snap out of it already. And stop talking about going to Wittenberg. You should stay here. King: Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

22. SOLILOQUY #1 I.ii.133-164 (page 29-31)
Hamlet is suicidal-ly depressed by his father’s death and mother’s remarriage. He is disillusioned with life, love and women
What’s his biggest problem with this situation?
Mother remarried in TWO MONTHS after she supposedly loved the late King Hamlet so much.

23. Recap There’s a ghost! Time to tell Hamlet.
That’s basically the rest of the scene.
Hamlet: My father’s spirit—in arms! All is not well.
What does Hamlet agree to do?
Go with them to see the ghost.