O'What a Rogue! (Act 2, Scene 2)

“O, What a Rogue” Soliloquy lesson

2.2.576-634 (pp 117-119)

Sit in a circle and read the speech round-robin, each student reading only to a semicolon, period, question mark, or exclamation point. 

After reading, circle or underline difficult words, and consult notes on the facing pages.

Ask questions and answer them as a group, making sure your group has a good sense of the speech.

Group Discussion Leader (s): Alternate leading discussion of the questions below:

1.    It is obvious to the audience or reader that Hamlet is alone onstage. What else, then, could he mean when he begins, “Now I am alone?”

2.    Why is the Prince calling himself a “rogue” and a “peasant slave”?

3.    Hamlet compares himself to the player (an actor).  What does this comparison reveal about Hamlet’s self-perception?

4.    Throughout the play, much violence is done to ears.  How does Hamlet’s “cleave the general ear” relate to other “ear” references?

5.    Hamlet uses a lot of theatrical terminology in his speech. Find some examples.  Why might Hamlet be thinking in theatrical terms?

6.    Find lines or phrases that explain why Hamlet thinks himself a coward.  Do you think he is a coward, or he is acting cautiously by looking for external evidence to prove Claudius’ guilt?

Hamlet's Soliloquy: O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! (2.2)

Now I am alone. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! (520)
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 wann'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, (530)
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, (540)
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 (550)
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, (560)
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; (570)
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.