Hamlet's Third Soliloquy - Original Text & Summary

In order to read Hamlet's First and Second Soliloquies with original text and summaries, click the following links:

1. HAMLET'S FIRST SOLILOQUY - ORIGINAL TEXT & SUMMARY

2. HAMLET'S SECOND SOLILOQUY - ORIGINAL TEXT & SUMMARY

HAMLET'S THIRD SOLILOQUY - ORIGINAL TEXT & SUMMARY:

Following is the original text and later followed by a summary of Hamlet's Third Soliloquy. Hamlet's Third Soliloquy falls in ACT 2, SCENE 2.

ORIGINAL TEXT: (Act 2, Scene 2)

Ay, so, God b' wi' ye!
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wan'd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba?
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free;
Confound the ignorant, and amaze, indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this, ha?
'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter; or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh! — About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ, I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy, —
As he is very potent with such spirits, —
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this. — the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

SUMMARY:

The third soliloquy falls in Act 2, Scene 2, after Rosecrantaz and Guildenstern leave. In this third installment of soliloquy Hamlet shares his inner feelings to the audience/reader, in which he specifically scolds himself for the continuous failure to execute his revenge of his dead father’s murder.

Prior to the start of the soliloquy, when a group of actors came to perform a play, Prince Hamlet asks the main lead to perform a play which he particularly likes; the play about the fall of Troy and the Prince and Queen, Priam and Hecuba. The player’s shedding tears while reciting a speech descriptive of Hecuba’s grief over the death of her husband stings Hamlet and makes him scold himself for his inaction. Hecuba is nothing to the player, and yet the player wept for her fate. What would the player do if he had the motive or the passion which Hamlet has? The player, at Hamlet’s place, would certainly drown the stage with tears and “makes mad the guilty and appeal the free…”

Hamlet regards himself as a “dull and muddy-metalled rascal” who has, so far, done nothing to avenge his father’s murder. He vents his anger on his uncle by referring to him as “a bloody, bawdy villain; remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindles villain”.

He then resolves to devise a trap for Claudius, forcing the king to watch a play whose plot closely resembles the murder of Hamlet’s father, as was told by the Ghost. Hamlet arranges the actors to perform a play on “THE MURDER OF GONZAGO”, the following night. That play will closely resemble the scene of Hamlet father’s murder and will include a speech written by Hamlet himself. According to Hamlet’s plan, he will closely observe the feeling of guilt in Claudius, if he murdered his father. As hamlet shares his thought in this soliloquy:

“The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”