Excerpt from the tragedy “Hamlet”
Hamlet, prince of Denmark, meets his father’s ghost at night before the castle. The ghost says the story that a snake stung him is false: in fact his brother Claudius poured poison into his ear as he slept and is now king, having married Queen Gertrude; he asks Hamlet for revenge but forbids him to touch his mother. Hamlet makes his friends Horatio and Marcellus swear to keep the secret and says he will behave strangely. Then Claudius summons Hamlet’s schoolmates Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to find the reason for the change, while Polonius reads Hamlet’s letter to Ophelia and thinks love is the cause. Hamlet realises his friends are spies, calls Denmark a prison and asks actors to stage his father’s death, so as to learn the truth from Claudius’s face. Left alone, he blames himself for hesitating. Then in the “to be or not to be” monologue he thinks about life and death, fear and thought. When Claudius is praying, Hamlet does not kill him, fearing it would save his soul. In the talk with his mother he mistakenly kills Polonius hidden behind a curtain and, accusing her of her deed, urges her to repent. The events after the excerpt are given briefly: Claudius pushes Hamlet into a duel with Laertes; the queen drinks the poisoned wine meant for Hamlet and dies; Hamlet wounds Claudius with the poisoned sword, and in the fight the weapons are exchanged, so that both Hamlet and Laertes are wounded by the poisoned blade and die.
Write the order of scenes (ghost – oath – letter – actors – monologue – prayer – talk with mother) on cards and arrange them; then write which trait of Hamlet appears in each scene. Note: if you ever feel hopeless, talk to an adult you trust; the monologue is a philosophical reflection on the meaning of life.