Sex Quotes - Hamlet | Hamlet- Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

[…] O God, God,

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on 't! ah fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this:

But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two.

So excellent a king; that was, to this

Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and Earth.

Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on. And yet, within a month

(Let me not think on 't; frailty, thy name is woman!)

[…]

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not nor it cannot come to good.

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

(1.2.136-150; 161-164)

Hamlet's got a serious problem with mom. It's not just that he's disgusted by Gertrude's incestuous marriage to Claudius —Hamlet can hardly stand to think about his mother having sex, period. Which, um, seems normal to us. What's not normal is the way that he keeps thinking about it, anyway.

LAERTES

Fear it, Ophelia; fear it, my dear sister,

And keep you in the rear of your affection,

Out of the shot and danger of desire.

The chariest maid is prodigal enough,

If she unmask her beauty to the moon.

Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes.

The canker galls the infants of the spring

Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,

And in the morn and liquid dew of youth,

Contagious blastments are most imminent.

Be wary then, best safety lies in fear.

Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

(1.3.37-48)

Laertes insists that Ophelia should fear premarital sex because a "deflowered" woman is seen as damaged goods that no man will want to marry. This speech is also full of vivid innuendo, as when he compares intercourse to a "canker" worm invading and injuring a delicate flower before its buds, or "buttons," have had time to open (1.3.39-40). Nice. It's not quite as creepy as Hamlet's fixation with his mom, but it's pretty close.

POLONIUS

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,

When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul

Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,

Giving more light than heat, extinct in both

Even in their promise, as it is a-making,

You must not take for fire. From this time

Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence.

(1.3.124-130)

Ophelia's virginity is a family affair: her dad agrees with her brother that her sexuality makes her vulnerable to damage. But it also makes her powerful: in Polonius' hands, Ophelia is nothing more than a tool to reveal Hamlet's state of mind.

O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be

A couch for luxury and damnèd incest.

But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,

To prick and sting her.

(1.5.87-95)

Like Hamlet, the ghost focuses on Gertrude's sexuality as he urges Hamlet not to let "Denmark be / A couch for luxury and damned incest." Translation: kill Claudius so Gertrude can't sleep with him anymore. Oh, but leave her out of it. (Yeah, right.)

HAMLET 

For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion—Have you a 

daughter?

LORD POLONIUS 

I have, my lord.

HAMLET 

Let her not walk i' th' sun. Conception is a blessing, but, as your daughter may conceive,

friend, look to 't. (2.2.197-203)

To Hamlet, pregnancy is less the miracle of life than the miracle of death: given that Hamlet has just said "dead dogs" and "breed maggots" in the sun, it's obvious that Hamlet is equating Ophelia's body with "carrion" (another word for road kill). This suggests that women's bodies are putrid and rotten: they give birth to dead things. Gross? Yeah. But in a way, Hamlet's right: everything born dies. (Oh, he's also punning on the word "sun," which alludes to the big shiny thing in the sky and also to Hamlet, the "son" of the dead king and the guy who would impregnate Ophelia with "maggots.")

HAMLET

Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a

breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest,

but yet I could accuse me 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.

(3.1.131-140)

Since Hamlet thinks all women are "breeders of sinners," he obviously doesn't think much of women. But, it also suggests that he doesn't think much of himself either, being one of those "sinners" that's been "bred" by a woman. In fact, Hamlet says it would be better if his "mother had not borne" him at all. Bonus: that would mean she'd never had sex. Double win!

HAMLET

Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed,

Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love

Over the nasty sty!

(3.4.103-106)

Wait, Hamlet, tell us again how you think sex is pretty much the most disgusting thing ever. We didn't catch it the first time. Or the second time. Or the… well, you get the point. Hamlet thinks sex is gross.

HAMLET

Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

OPHELIA

No, my lord.

HAMLET

I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA

Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA

I think nothing, my lord.

HAMLET

That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

OPHELIA

What is, my lord?

HAMLET

Nothing.

(3.2.119-128)

Hamlet's dirty talk (which we translate into modern lingo in "Steaminess Rating") puts Ophelia in an impossible situation. When Hamlet makes lewd innuendos, Ophelia can't respond in a way that suggests she knows what he's talking about. If she does, then it would suggest that she knows a little too much about sex. This could be as damaging to her reputation as, say, losing her virginity before marriage. Our point? Hamlet gets the power to control Ophelia's conversation, just like Polonius and Laertes have the power to control her body.

HAMLET

Mother, for love of grace,

Lay not that mattering unction to your soul

That not your trespass but my madness speaks.

It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,

Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,

Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,

Repent what's past, avoid what is to come,

And do not spread the compost on the weeds

To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue,

For in the fatness of these pursy times

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,

Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain!

(3.4.165-177)

There's that word "rank" again. This time, Hamlet warns Gertrude to stop spreading "compost on the weeds" (sleeping with Claudius), which will make her sins (incest) even "ranker" than they already are. What's more, Hamlet's talk of "ulcers," "infection," and "corruption" seems to allude to venereal disease. It's as though Hamlet thinks women are contagious. Given contemporary standards of hygiene, we're thinking both men and women were running around contagious most of the time.

GHOST 

Do not forget. This visitation

Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

But look, amazement on thy mother sits.

O, step between her and her fighting soul.

Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.

Speak to her, Hamlet.

(3.4.126-131)

It looks like Hamlet was so busy laying into Gertrude for sleeping with Claudius that he forgot all about the ghost's orders for him to leave Gertrude "to heaven"—almost as if he's more upset by Gertrude's sexuality than his father's murder.

HAMLET

[…]That it should come to this:

But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two.

So excellent a king, that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and Earth.

Must I remember? why, she would hang on him

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on. And yet, within a month

(Let me not think on 't; frailty, thy name is woman!)

[…]

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not nor it cannot come to good.

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

(1.2.141-150; 161-164)

Hamlet's got a serious problem with mom. It's not just that he's disgusted by Gertrude's incestuous marriage to Claudius —Hamlet can hardly stand to think about his mother having sex, period. Which, um, seems normal to us. What's not normal is the way that he keeps thinking about it, anyway.