(3)+O,+what+a+rogue+and+peasant+slave+am+I!


 * (3rd soliloquy-- Act 2, Scene 2, lines 99-116, Folger Edition)**

//INTRODUCTION://

//The power of this scene is directly related to its context. The players have just come to Elsinore, and Hamlet is clearly a very big fan. It could be that he even performed with them when he was at college in Wittenberg. The importance of the players, along with everything else that is happening leading up to this soliloquy, is made evident by Hamlet's open line, "Now I am alone." The players have left Hamlet to get ready for their evening performance and his "friends" Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have also left Hamlet.

However, before leaving, the players performed a very brief enactment of a poem about the fall of Troy. King Priam of Troy is dead, and his wife, Hecuba, is morning him. This mini-performance influences most of this soliloquy, and it the players that show Hamlet how pathetic his non-action is.//

//ANNOTATED SOLILOQUY: //


 * HAMLET: **

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 580 That from her working all his visage wann'd, Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to h ****is conceit? and all for nothing! ** **For Hecuba! 585 What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? **
 * //Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit// **

//What is Hecuba to him (the actor) that can make the actor seem so visibly upset and emotional. It is all pretend, and the actor is only motivated by entertaining others.// 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, 590 Make mad the guilty and appal the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed **** The very faculties of eyes and ears. **
 * 

//Hamlet imagines what the actor would do if he actually had a real reason to be upset and angry. Hamlet believes that// //if the players had reason to behave as he does, that they would amaze their audience.// Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, 595 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? **
 * 

//Hamlet questions himself as the king's son. He calls himself a coward and hasn't made any plans for revenge for his poor father whose life was just taken by murder.//

**Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face? 600 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 605 I should have fatted all the region kites ** **With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! **

//In the two lines above Hamlet is referring to his uncle who has no remorse for killing Hamlet's father and his own brother.//

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, 615 A scullion! **
 *  O, vengeance! 610

//Here, Hamlet realizes he has done nothing, but curse and think about his father's death. Instead of action, Hamlet is a man of words. Instead of revenge, Hamlet has used thought against his uncle. Like a prostitute who pretends to "love," by using words, Hamlet is thinking and speaking of revenge, but he does not show his love for his father with action.//

580-81. **Could…waned:** i.e., could work his soul into such accord with his thought that, from his soul’s working on his body, his face grew pale 583-84. **his whole function…conceit:** i.e., all the bodily powers that express emotion responding with outward appearances to match his thoughts 591. **Make made…free:** i.e., madden guilty spectators and terrify those who are innocent 592. **amaze:** astound 594. **muddy-mettled:** dull spirited; **peak:** mope 595. **John-a-dreams:** a proverbial name for an absent-minded dreamer; **unpregnant of:** unfilled by, and therefore never to give birth (to action) \ 598. **defeat:** overthrow 601-2. **gives me…lungs:** i.e., calls me an absolute liar 603. **‘Swounds:** an oath, by Christ’s wounds 606. **kites:** birds of prey 608. **kindless:** unnatural 611. **brave:** admirable 615. **drab:** prostitute 616. **scullion:** kitchen servant

//CONCLUSION: //

//Hamlet expresses his struggle between revenge in this soliloquy. " Who calls me villain?" He questions whether he is going to be the victim of bullies. If he would let them call him names, strike him on the head, pull his beard out and throw it in his face. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">//In this soliloquy, Shakespeare depicts Hamlet fighting with himself in many respects. Hamlet is eager yet fearful to avenge his father's murder, and is also unsure of the intentions of his father's ghost, that is, if the ghost is actually that of his deceased father.

The end of this soliloquy is important because it allows the viewers to learn Hamlet's formulation of a concrete plan, which was not yet disclosed prior to this point (below). The soliloquy also provides an insight into Hamlet's dueling and fickle tendencies/personalities, as seen in his flip flopping from one attitude to another, then his subsequent self loathing.//

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> 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 620 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; 625 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, 630 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.