soliloquiy 3

• Hamlet's mood shifts from self-loathing to a determination to subdue passion and follow reason, applying this to the testing of the Ghost and his uncle in the play.
• Cues for passion do not necessarily produce it in reality in the same way that they do in fiction, and that paradoxically, deep and traumatic feelings can take the form of an apparent lack of, or even inappropriate, manifestation.
• The speech is highly rhetorical, full of lists, insults, and repetitions of vocabulary, especially the word 'villain', suggesting the speaker is channeling his rage and unpacking his heart with words.
• The speech transitions from a rhetorical style to a gentler and more regular rhythm of thought rather than emotion.
• The first part of the speech mirrors the style of the First Player describing Pyrrhus, with its short phrasing, incomplete lines, melodramatic diction, and irregular meter.
• It is one of these actors who sends Hamlet into a spiral of despair, prompting this incredible soliloquy. The actor performs a piece for him (Hamlet gives it the title “Aeneas tale to Dido ”) about Priam and his wife, Hecuba, taken from The Iliad of Greek Myth. In this speech the actor depicts the murder of a man and his wife (Hecuba’s) reaction to the man’s slaughter.
• The actor must perform well, because Polonius, who has already complained about the acting being boring, has been deeply moved by this piece about Hecuba, stating, “Look, where he has not turned his colour and has tears in’s eyes. Pray you, no more.” What Polonius is describing is the emotion which has welled up in the actor’s eyes due to his performance. (Maybe we all could take some acting tips from this guy, hey?)
• Promptly Hamlet shoo’s and dismisses the people around him, and finally he has a moment alone to process all which has just happened and this moving performance, and how that reflects on him and his delayed vengeance for his Father.
• "what a rogue and peasant slave i am"
• unsure whether or not to kill claudius; says that he will wait to find more evidence; beating himself up for being a coward; player shows more emotion than him