Hamlet: Act III, Scene II

• Hamlet gives advice to the players → presumably to make the play seem more realistic; he tells them to act naturally, but not-overbearingly so as to create a natural flow, show realism
• “...let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action;”
• don’t over exaggerate your words and your hand-gestures
• Hamlet tells Polonius to get the actors ready as the King and Queen settle unto their positions → tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to help Polonius on getting the actors ready
• he tells Horatio that he is a man that he trusts wholeheartedly, calls him a good man → Hamlet is proclaiming his friendship and trust to Horatio (sees Horatio as the only person that hasn’t required/needed something out of Hamlet)
• “Observe my uncle”  → Hamlet asks Horatio to watch Claudius closely
• Claudius asks Hamlet how he is doing which earns him a nonsensical reply (Hamlet is reaffirming his status to Claudius as that of a man who has grieved to the point of madness)
• Hamlet makes witty comments, particularly sexual remarks to Ophelia; he also remarks on his father’s death → primarily on how fast his mother has moved on
• Players enter in order to enact the plays
• they reenact the death of the old King as a different story (dumb show)
• the actual play is of the King and Queen → King tells the Queen of his nearing death and tells her to marry someone else
• Hamlet becomes impatient when Lucianus (apparent nephew to the King in the play) takes too long on coming to the actual point → tells everyone the plot (Lucianus pours poison on the Kings ear, thus killing him)
• Claudius is seen with guilt; tells them to stop the play
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell Hamlet that Claudius is upset (and angry) and tell him that his mother wants to talk to him → Hamlet misinterprets it and gets angry at the two

“Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.”  

- Hamlet