He used to be a gentleman, a soldier and a scholar, the jewel of the crown and destined to become king. Ophelia uses verse in her speech, once Hamlet has left, and ends with a rhyming couplet while their previous conversation was all in prose. Why do you think she makes this change?
Hamlet and Ophelia in the production of Hamlet. Help us by taking a short survey — it will only take a few minutes and will help us make the Shakespeare Learning Zone even better for everyone. Main Site Menu. Take a look at the scene. Who has the most lines? Are they using prose or verse?
Actors at the RSC often put the language into their own words to help them understand what they are saying. You can click on the text that is highlighted for extra guidance. Close Hamlet. Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest but yet I could accuse myself of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.
What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all - believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? At home, my lord. Let the doors be shut upon him that he may play the fool nowhere but in's own house.
Aside O help him, you sweet heavens! Get thee to a nunnery. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them.
To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Get yourself to a convent, at once. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God has given you one face and you make yourselves another. It hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages. Those that are married already, all but one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. God gives you one face, but you paint another on top of it.
I hereby declare we will have no more marriage. Ophelia's response to Hamlet's question serves as the force that propels Hamlet's story to its tragic ends.
If Ophelia had answered truthfully, if she had disclosed her father's whereabouts, if she had allied herself with Hamlet rather than with Claudius, if she had truly believed in her love for Hamlet, Ophelia might have saved Hamlet from his burden.
The play could have been a romance rather than a tragedy. However, by confirming his belief in women's basic dishonesty — "frailty thy name is woman" — Ophelia seals her fate and Hamlet's at the same time. Claudius and Polonius emerge from hiding, astounded.
Claudius still finds Polonius' case for Hamlet's love of Ophelia dubious. Furthermore, Claudius questions Hamlet's madness. A master of deception, Claudius suspects that Hamlet is not as he seems and, as such, is a danger. He hatches his plan to exile the Prince to England. Perhaps to save Hamlet or perhaps to buy favor with the Queen, Polonius suggests yet another trap. Send Hamlet to see Gertrude, and instruct her to beg Hamlet to leave well enough alone.
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