99 Fun Facts About Hamlet

What is the play's full title?

The full title is The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark; the 1623 First Folio prints it as 'The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke', while the early quartos call it a 'Tragicall Historie'.

Who has murdered Hamlet's father and married his mother?

Marcellus's line about something being 'rotten in the state of Denmark' is usually read as pointing at this fratricide.

What is the name of Hamlet's mother?

Gertrude, Hamlet's mother and Queen of Denmark, remarried her dead husband's brother within two months, prompting Hamlet's 'Frailty, thy name is woman' in his first soliloquy.

Which friend does the dying Hamlet charge to stay alive and tell his story?

Horatio, Hamlet's fellow student and confidant, is told to 'absent thee from felicity awhile' and report the cause aright; he is left alive to do so at the end.

How does Hamlet kill the king's eavesdropping counsellor?

Polonius is eavesdropping on Hamlet and Gertrude behind an arras when he cries out; Hamlet stabs wildly, thinking it might be the king.

How does Ophelia die?

Gertrude reports that a willow branch broke and dropped her into the brook; a 1569 coroner's report on a drowned girl called Jane Shaxspere may have inspired it.

Where does Ophelia's brother go at the start of the play, before returning in a rage in Act 4?

Ophelia's brother goes back to France; their father later sends the servant Reynaldo to Paris to check on how his son is behaving there.

Who is Ophelia's brother, who fights Hamlet in the final duel?

Laertes, Ophelia's brother, fences Hamlet with an unbated, venom-tipped rapier; the weapons change hands in a scuffle and both men die of the same poison.

Which two old friends are sent to spy on Hamlet and later escort him to England?

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, summoned by the king to sound Hamlet out, carry sealed orders for his execution in England; Hamlet rewrites the commission so they die instead.

What is the title of the play Hamlet has the travelling actors perform to test Claudius's guilt?

Hamlet asks the players for The Murder of Gonzago, inserting a dozen lines of his own, and tells the king it is called 'The Mousetrap'; the king halts the performance.

Why does Hamlet decide NOT to kill the king when he catches him alone and unarmed?

He reasons that killing a man at prayer would send him to heaven; ironically Claudius admits he cannot truly repent.

Whom does the dying Hamlet name as his successor to the Danish throne?

Fortinbras, the Norwegian prince, receives Hamlet's 'dying voice' for the election and marches in as the play ends to claim the kingdom and order a soldier's funeral.

Whose skull does Hamlet hold in the graveyard scene?

Yorick, the old king's jester who once carried the boy Hamlet on his back, has lain in the earth 23 years, by the gravedigger's count, when his skull is turned up.

Which pianist left his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982 hoping it would be used as Yorick?

André Tchaikowsky, a Polish-born pianist and composer, bequeathed his skull to the RSC on his death in 1982; David Tennant finally held it in the graveyard scene of the 2008 production.

At what point in the play does Hamlet deliver 'To be, or not to be'?

It's the 'nunnery scene': Ophelia is on stage waiting, and Claudius and Polonius are hidden nearby listening.

How does the 'bad' First Quarto of 1603 mangle the opening of the famous soliloquy?

Q1 of 1603 prints 'To be, or not to be, aye there's the point' (spelled 'I'), placing the speech earlier in the action; at about 2,200 lines it is roughly 60 percent of the Second Quarto.

Which character gives the advice 'Neither a borrower nor a lender be' and 'To thine own self be true'?

He's also the source of 'Brevity is the soul of wit', which is funny coming from the most long-winded man in the play.

Roughly how many lines does a conflated modern text of Hamlet, Shakespeare's longest play, run to?

A conflated modern text runs to about 3,900 lines (counts vary by edition, some reaching 4,000), roughly 30,000 words; an uncut staging lasts well over four hours.

How many early printed versions of Hamlet survive, each with lines the others lack?

Three survive: the First Quarto of 1603, the Second Quarto of 1604 and the First Folio of 1623; Q2 has around 230 lines absent from the Folio, which in turn adds about 70 of its own.

When did Shakespeare most likely write Hamlet?

It isn't in Francis Meres's 1598 list of Shakespeare's plays, and it alludes to Julius Caesar, dated to mid-1599.

Which 13th-century chronicler's 'Life of Amleth' is the play's main legendary source?

Saxo Grammaticus told the Amleth story in Books III and IV of his Latin Gesta Danorum (c. 1200); his prince also feigns madness and kills an eavesdropper in his mother's chamber.

Which 2022 Robert Eggers film retells the Amleth legend with Alexander Skarsgård?

Amleth is the son of Horvendill, king of the Jutes, in Saxo's telling; Eggers co-wrote the script with the Icelandic author Sjón.

What do scholars call the lost earlier play, possibly by Kyd, that Shakespeare may have reworked?

The Ur-Hamlet is known only from allusions: Thomas Nashe mocked 'whole Hamlets' of tragical speeches in 1589, and Thomas Lodge in 1596 recalled a ghost crying 'Hamlet, revenge'.

What was the name of Shakespeare's only son, who died in 1596 aged eleven?

Hamnet Shakespeare, twin of Judith, was buried in Stratford in August 1596; Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable spellings then, and Stephen Greenblatt links the father's grief to the tragedy.

Which German university city do Hamlet and his student friends attend?

Wittenberg, the university to which Hamlet asks to return, was Martin Luther's town, famous for the Ninety-five Theses of 1517; Marlowe's Doctor Faustus is a Wittenberg scholar too.

Which real Danish castle is the Elsinore of the play?

Kronborg, the castle at Helsingør on the narrowest point of the Øresund, is the play's Elsinore; a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000, it was rebuilt after a fire in 1629.

For which leading actor of his company did Shakespeare almost certainly write the role of Hamlet?

Burbage was the star of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and the play was described in 1602 as 'latelie Acted' by them.

Which French actress famously played the prince in London in 1899 and filmed the fencing scene in 1900?

Sarah Bernhardt played the prince in Paris and London in 1899 and filmed the duel in 1900 for the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, the earliest known Hamlet on film; Asta Nielsen followed in 1921.

Whose 1948 black-and-white Hamlet won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor?

Laurence Olivier directed and starred, winning Best Actor while the film became the first British production to take Best Picture; Olivier was the first person to direct himself to an acting Oscar.

The 1948 film's prologue calls Hamlet the tragedy of a man who could not do what?

The 1948 film's opening voice-over declares 'This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind', announcing the indecisive reading its heavily cut text pursues.

Who directed and starred in the first full-length, unabridged film of Hamlet in 1996?

Kenneth Branagh directed and played the prince in a four-hour, 70mm film using the full conflated text, with Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and Charlton Heston in supporting parts.

Which stately home stood in for the exterior of Elsinore in Branagh's 1996 film?

Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire provided Elsinore's exterior, its grounds dressed with snow for a 19th-century setting, while the mirrored state hall and other interiors were built at Shepperton Studios.

Who played Ophelia in Branagh's 1996 Hamlet?

Kate Winslet played Ophelia, fresh from Sense and Sensibility; Julie Christie was the queen, and comedian Ken Dodd appeared in silent flashback as the jester.

Which Hollywood action star played Hamlet in Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 film?

Glenn Close played his mother Gertrude, though she is only nine years older than Gibson.

In Michael Almereyda's 2000 version, Ethan Hawke plays Hamlet as what, in modern Manhattan?

Hawke's Hamlet is a film student who shoots his own video diary; the king runs the Denmark Corporation, Elsinore is a Manhattan hotel, and the Ghost first appears on security video.

Who played Claudius opposite David Tennant's Hamlet in the RSC production filmed for the BBC in 2009?

Patrick Stewart doubled the king and the Ghost in Gregory Doran's production; he had already played the same role in the 1980 BBC Television Shakespeare Hamlet opposite Derek Jacobi.

Which actor played Hamlet for a 12-week run at London's Barbican in 2015?

Benedict Cumberbatch played the prince at the Barbican from August to October 2015 in Lyndsey Turner's production, later screened in cinemas by NT Live; Andrew Scott followed at the Almeida in 2017.

Whose 1964 Broadway Hamlet, directed by John Gielgud, ran for 137 performances?

Richard Burton's 1964 Hamlet ran 137 performances at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre under John Gielgud, who voiced the Ghost; it was filmed in 'Electronovision' and briefly shown in cinemas.

Which 1994 Disney film is a loose animated retelling of Hamlet?

The Lion King maps the plot onto the savanna: Simba is the grieving prince, Scar the murderous uncle, and Mufasa the father who returns as a vision in the clouds.

Who wrote the 1966 absurdist play that follows Hamlet's two doomed courtiers from the wings?

Tom Stoppard's play premiered at the 1966 Edinburgh Fringe, showing the two courtiers killing time offstage; its title is the ambassador's line from the last scene, and it is constantly compared with Waiting for Godot.

Which 2014 Bollywood film relocates Hamlet to modern Kashmir?

Haider, the last of Vishal Bhardwaj's Shakespeare trilogy after Maqbool (Macbeth) and Omkara (Othello), stars Shahid Kapoor as a student searching for his disappeared father in 1995 Kashmir.

Which psychoanalyst developed his ideas about the Oedipus complex partly from analysing Hamlet?

Sigmund Freud linked Hamlet's delay to repressed Oedipal desire in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899); his follower Ernest Jones expanded the reading, which shaped the 1937 Old Vic staging and the 1948 film.

Which Soviet director's 1964 Hamlet used a Boris Pasternak translation and a Shostakovich score?

Grigori Kozintsev's black-and-white Hamlet, with Innokenty Smoktunovsky as the prince, used Pasternak's translation and Shostakovich's score; he followed it with King Lear in 1971.

Which chief counsellor to Elizabeth I is often suggested as the model for the play's long-winded adviser?

Burghley wrote 'Ten Precepts' of advice to his son Robert, much as Polonius lectures Laertes.

In the play within the play, how is the king Gonzago murdered?

That is exactly how the ghost says Claudius killed King Hamlet, which is why the re-enactment rattles the king.

What is Ophelia's father called in the 'bad' First Quarto of 1603?

Corambis is the First Quarto's name for Ophelia's father, with Montano for his servant; one theory holds the usual names were swapped for an Oxford performance to avoid echoing Robert Pullen and John Rainolds.

Fortinbras asks Claudius for passage through Denmark to attack which country?

Ordered by Norway to abandon his invasion of Denmark, Fortinbras instead requests passage for a march on Poland.

What is Claudius's backup plan if Laertes' envenomed foil fails to kill Hamlet in the fencing match?

Poisoned wine is the fallback: the king will offer Hamlet a 'chalice for the nonce' when he pauses to drink, and the queen drains it instead.

After the Restoration, which troupe secured Hamlet when the old plays were split between two patent theatres?

The Duke's Men under Sir William Davenant staged Hamlet from 1661 with Thomas Betterton as the prince, on a stage with painted movable scenery; Killigrew's rival company held the bulk of the old repertory.

Which title, later borrowed by Agatha Christie, does Hamlet give the play staged for the king?

The Mousetrap is Hamlet's private joke, since the play is bait for a guilty king. Christie's son-in-law suggested the name when her thriller Three Blind Mice needed a new title.

In Hamlet's phrase 'hoist with his own petard', what is the petard that undoes its own engineer?

A small bomb for blasting open gates was called a petard, so the engineer is blown up by his own charge. The name traces back to the Latin for breaking wind.

Hamlet's mother, watching the Player Queen swear eternal loyalty, says the lady doth what too much?

Protest meant 'vow' in Shakespeare's day, so the queen is objecting to too many oaths, not too many denials. The line is usually misquoted with 'methinks' moved to the front.

In Hamlet's graveyard scene, the skull the prince picks up belonged to a man with which court job?

The king's jester had carried the young Hamlet on his back 'a thousand times', which is why the sight of the bare skull turns the prince's stomach.

Which unlikely rescuers attack Hamlet's ship bound for England and end up bringing him home?

Pirates chase the ship two days out, and Hamlet, the only prisoner they take, calls them 'thieves of mercy' who spared him in return for a favour.

Which Star Trek film takes its subtitle from Hamlet's description of death in 'To be, or not to be'?

The Undiscovered Country is the place from which 'no traveller returns'. Translating Shakespeare into Klingon later proved tricky because the language had been invented without a verb 'to be'.

Which quality does Ophelia's father find in Hamlet's madness, giving English a lasting phrase?

Method is what the old counsellor spots in Hamlet's riddling insults: 'Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't', the origin of 'method in the madness'.

After berating his mother in her chamber, Hamlet says he must be cruel only to be what?

Kind completes a rhyming couplet, 'I must be cruel, only to be kind: thus bad begins and worse remains behind', the source of the saying 'cruel to be kind'.

Which nervous challenge from a sentry on the midnight battlements is the opening line of Hamlet?

'Who's there?' comes from the wrong man: the sentry arriving to take over challenges the one already on guard, a first hint that the whole castle is on edge.

Which TV crime drama borrows from Hamlet, with a stepfather who now leads the dead father's gang?

Sons of Anarchy has been nicknamed 'Hamlet on Harleys': its biker hero's father was usurped by a club 'brother' who then married the hero's mother.

Which colour does Hamlet keep wearing at court, to the open irritation of the new king and queen?

Black is his mourning for a father not two months dead. His mother asks him to 'cast thy nighted colour off', and he retorts that an 'inky cloak' is the least part of his grief.

Hamlet jokes that leftover food from which event was served cold at his mother's wedding?

His father's funeral came so soon before the wedding that, in Hamlet's sour joke about thrift, the 'funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables'.

How is the Ghost of Hamlet's father dressed when the castle sentries see it walk the battlements?

In full armour, 'from head to foot', but with the visor raised, so the watchers can make out a pale face that looks 'more in sorrow than in anger'.

Which sound makes the Ghost in Hamlet start 'like a guilty thing' and vanish before it can speak?

A cock crowing means dawn, when wandering spirits must hurry back to their confines. The watchers add a folk belief that at Christmas the bird sings all night, so no spirit dares stir.

According to the Ghost in Hamlet, where was the old king taking an afternoon nap when killed?

In his orchard, where he slept every afternoon: the killer picked what the Ghost calls 'my secure hour', when the king was alone and off his guard.

In Hamlet, which false cause of the old king's death does the Ghost say was given out to Denmark?

A serpent's sting was the official story, and the Ghost seizes on the image at once, telling Hamlet that the real serpent is still alive and thriving at court.

On which object does Hamlet make his companions swear never to speak of the Ghost they have seen?

His sword is held out again and again, because the Ghost keeps crying 'Swear' from beneath them and the startled group shifts to new ground each time.

Having met the Ghost, Hamlet warns friends he may put on which 'disposition' as a show of madness?

Antic disposition is his cover story, and he makes his friends promise never to hint, by folded arms, a headshake or a knowing phrase, that they understand what he is up to.

As the Ghost's voice follows from under the ground, Hamlet jokingly hails it as an old what?

Mole is his name for a voice that keeps turning up underfoot: 'Well said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast?', he calls, before moving his friends to yet another spot.

What does the Ghost in Hamlet order the prince to do about his mother while pursuing the murderer?

Leave her to heaven, the Ghost says, 'and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge'. It returns later, while Hamlet is raging at her, to remind him of the task he has let slide.

In Hamlet, which quality does Ophelia's long-winded father call 'the soul of wit' mid-ramble?

Brevity is praised by the least brief man in Denmark: he announces 'I will be brief' in a speech so padded that the queen has to ask for 'more matter, with less art'.

Which cause does Ophelia's father confidently give the king and queen for Hamlet's madness?

Rejected love is his diagnosis, and he is sure of it because he ordered the rejection himself, telling his daughter to admit no messengers and receive no tokens from the prince.

Asked 'Do you know me, my lord?' by Ophelia's father, Hamlet says the old man follows which trade?

A fishmonger, says Hamlet, and when the old man denies it he adds 'Then I would you were so honest a man'. His victim concludes that the prince is 'far gone'.

Asked by Ophelia's father what he is reading, Hamlet gives which one-noun answer three times over?

Words, words, words is the whole reply, and when pressed for the 'matter' Hamlet claims the book says old men have grey beards, wrinkled faces and weak hams, a jab at his questioner.

In Hamlet, what does the prince call Denmark when two old schoolfriends arrive to sound him out?

A prison, he says, and 'one o' the worst' in a world full of them. When the pair disagree, he shrugs that 'there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so'.

Hamlet's speech 'What a piece of work is a man' ends by calling man the 'quintessence' of what?

Dust is the punchline: after praising man as 'the paragon of animals' and 'in apprehension how like a god', Hamlet says the whole species no longer delights him.

Mad only 'north-north-west', Hamlet says that in a southerly wind he can tell a hawk from what?

A handsaw ends a riddle aimed at the two friends he has just forced to admit 'we were sent for': his madness, he hints, depends on which way the wind blows.

Which woman of Troy does the First Player weep for, leaving Hamlet to ask what she is 'to him'?

Hecuba, Troy's queen, means nothing to the actor, yet he sheds real tears for her. Hamlet, who has an actual murdered father to avenge, is shamed by the comparison.

In a famous couplet, Hamlet says 'the play's the thing' wherein he will catch the king's what?

Conscience is the target because Hamlet doubts the Ghost: a devil could have taken his father's shape, so he wants the king's own face to confirm the story.

What was Ophelia doing in her room when Hamlet burst in half-dressed and gripped her by the wrist?

Sewing, she tells her father, when Hamlet appeared with his doublet undone, no hat and his stockings round his ankles, studied her face at arm's length, sighed and left.

Where does Hamlet repeatedly order Ophelia to go, asking why she would be 'a breeder of sinners'?

To a nunnery, he says five times in one scene, and he turns the same disgust on himself: 'I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.'

In 'To be, or not to be', Hamlet weighs suffering 'the slings and arrows of outrageous' what?

Fortune is the enemy in the speech's opening choice: endure its 'slings and arrows', or 'take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them'.

Coaching the actors, Hamlet says the purpose of playing is to hold a mirror up to what?

Nature is Hamlet's test of good acting, and he has just told the players not to saw the air with their hands or 'tear a passion to tatters' to please the groundlings.

What does the shaken king call for as he breaks off the court play in Hamlet and hurries out?

Light is his only request, 'Give me some light: away!', and the whole court takes up the cry. A delighted Hamlet says he would now stake a thousand pounds on the Ghost's honesty.

Which instrument does Hamlet thrust at his two spying friends, saying they cannot play him either?

A recorder, borrowed from the players, makes the point: when the friend objects that he has no skill to play it, Hamlet asks, 'do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?'

Hamlet makes Ophelia's father agree a cloud is like a camel, then a weasel, then which sea creature?

A whale is the third shape, and 'Very like a whale' comes the eager reply. Hamlet mutters that such yes-men 'fool me to the top of my bent'.

Hearing a hidden listener in his mother's room, Hamlet shouts 'Dead, for a ducat' at which animal?

A rat is all he claims to have found, and he bets a ducat on the kill. When his mother asks what he has done, he answers, 'Nay, I know not: is it the king?'

In Hamlet's closet scene, what does the prince make his mother study to compare her two husbands?

Two portraits: Hamlet praises one face for 'Hyperion's curls' and 'the front of Jove himself', then asks how she could leave 'this fair mountain' to 'batten on this moor'.

Asked by the king where the dead counsellor's body is, what does Hamlet first reply?

At supper, 'not where he eats, but where he is eaten': worms are dining on him, Hamlet explains, and the same worms make a fat king and a lean beggar two dishes at one table.

What do the sealed letters that the king sends to England with Hamlet secretly ask for?

His execution, and at once: Hamlet later reports that the order allowed no delay, 'not to stay the grinding of the axe', before his head was to be struck off.

Which herb does the grief-crazed Ophelia hand out in Hamlet, saying 'that's for remembrance'?

Rosemary comes first, then pansies 'for thoughts', fennel, columbines, rue and a daisy. The violets, she says, 'withered all when my father died'.

How does the poisoned rapier come to wound its own owner during the final duel in Hamlet?

The fencers swap weapons in a scuffle after Hamlet is first cut, so the plotter is caught, in his own image, 'as a woodcock to mine own springe'.

Which line does the dying Hamlet speak just before a friend bids him 'Good night, sweet prince'?

The rest is silence follows Hamlet's last piece of business, giving his 'dying voice' to the man who is about to become the next king of Denmark.

Which foppish courtier, mocked by Hamlet as a 'water-fly', delivers the challenge to the final duel?

Osric is so eager to please that, having called the day very hot, he lets Hamlet talk him into cold and then sultry again. He goes on to referee the fencing, calling 'a very palpable hit'.

Defying omens before the duel, Hamlet sees 'a special providence' in the fall of which bird?

A sparrow is enough to persuade him that everything is ordained: death will come now or later, he reasons, so 'the readiness is all'.

Which object in his purse lets Hamlet seal the forged royal order he writes on the ship to England?

His father's signet matched the Danish royal seal, so the forgery passed as genuine. Hamlet takes the luck of having it with him as a sign that heaven was guiding events.

Which poet called Hamlet 'most certainly an artistic failure' in a 1919 essay on the play?

T. S. Eliot argued that Shakespeare never found events to match his hero's emotion, and the essay made the term for such a match, the 'objective correlative', a fixture of criticism.

Which English actor, first cast as Hamlet in 1661, went on playing the young prince until he was 74?

Thomas Betterton was cast by William Davenant and played the part opposite Mary Saunderson, the Ophelia he soon married.

Which composer turned Hamlet into an 1868 grand opera whose original ending lets the prince live?

Ambroise Thomas followed a stage version by Alexandre Dumas in which the Ghost tells Hamlet he shall live, and the opera ends with him proclaimed king. A shorter finale named for Covent Garden has the prince die after all.

Which Ian McEwan novel retells Hamlet through a narrator who has not yet been born?

Nutshell takes its title from Hamlet's boast that he 'could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space'; its narrator overhears a murder plot from the womb.