Hamlet — Act 3, Scene 1

original text and modern English, side by side

A room in the Castle · King, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Hamlet

Claudius and Polonius plant Ophelia in a corridor and hide to eavesdrop, hoping to prove that lovesickness is behind Hamlet's strange behaviour. Alone, Hamlet delivers the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, weighing whether to go on living. When Ophelia tries to return his gifts he turns savage, denies ever having loved her, and repeatedly orders her to a nunnery; Claudius, unconvinced by the love theory, decides to ship him to England.

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

King

And can you by no drift of circumstance

Get from him why he puts on this confusion,

Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

And you can't find any roundabout way to get him to say why he's putting on this disordered act, tearing up his own peace of mind with this wild and dangerous madness?

Rosencrantz

He does confess he feels himself distracted,

He admits he feels unbalanced,

But from what cause he will by no means speak.

but he refuses to say what's causing it.

Guildenstern

Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,

And he isn't willing to be probed.

But with a crafty madness keeps aloof

When we would bring him on to some confession

Of his true state.

Whenever we steer him toward admitting what's really wrong, he slips away with a cunning kind of madness.

Queen

Did he receive you well?

Did he receive you kindly?

Rosencrantz

Most like a gentleman.

Very much like a gentleman.

Guildenstern

But with much forcing of his disposition.

But he was clearly forcing himself to be pleasant.

Rosencrantz

Niggard of question, but of our demands,

Most free in his reply.

He gave us little, but when we asked him things he answered readily enough.

Queen

Did you assay him to any pastime?

Did you try to interest him in any entertainment?

Rosencrantz

Madam, it so fell out that certain players

We o’er-raught on the way.

Madam, it happened that we overtook a company of actors on the road.

Of these we told him,

And there did seem in him a kind of joy

To hear of it.

We told him about them, and he seemed genuinely pleased to hear it.

They are about the court,

And, as I think, they have already order

This night to play before him.

They're here at court, and I believe they've already been booked to perform for him tonight.

Polonius

’Tis most true;

That's quite true.

And he beseech’d me to entreat your Majesties

To hear and see the matter.

And he asked me to invite your Majesties to come and watch it with him.

King

With all my heart; and it doth much content me

To hear him so inclin’d.

Gladly — and it's a relief to hear he's interested in something.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,

And drive his purpose on to these delights.

Gentlemen, keep encouraging him, and push him further toward these amusements.

Rosencrantz

We shall, my lord.

We will, my lord.

Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

King

Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,

Sweet Gertrude, you leave us as well.

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,

That he, as ’twere by accident, may here

Affront Ophelia.

We've quietly sent for Hamlet to come here, so that he can run into Ophelia as though it were by chance.

Her father and myself, lawful espials,

Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,

We may of their encounter frankly judge,

Her father and I will hide ourselves — spying, but legally — where we can see without being seen, and judge their meeting honestly.

And gather by him, as he is behav’d,

If’t be th’affliction of his love or no

That thus he suffers for.

From how he behaves toward her we'll work out whether it really is lovesickness that's tormenting him.

Queen

I shall obey you.

I'll do as you ask.

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet’s wildness:

And as for you, Ophelia, I hope it is your beauty that has driven Hamlet wild —

so shall I hope your virtues

Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

and that your good qualities can bring him back to his old self, to the credit of you both.

Ophelia

Madam, I wish it may.

Madam, I hope so too.

Exit Queen.

Polonius

Ophelia, walk you here.

Ophelia, walk over here.

Gracious, so please you,

We will bestow ourselves.

Your Majesty, if you'll come with me, we'll take our places.

[_To Ophelia._] Read on this book,

That show of such an exercise may colour

Your loneliness.

[To Ophelia] Read this prayer book; looking devout will explain why you're alone.

We are oft to blame in this,

’Tis too much prov’d,

We're all guilty of this, and it's been proved too often:

that with devotion’s visage

And pious action we do sugar o’er

The devil himself.

with a pious face and holy gestures we sweeten over the devil himself.

Aside.

King

O ’tis too true!

[Aside] That's far too true!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

How that line whips my conscience.

The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it

Than is my deed to my most painted word.

A prostitute's cheek, prettied up with thick makeup, is no uglier under the paint than my deed is beneath my painted words.

O heavy burden!

What a heavy burden!

Polonius

I hear him coming.

Let’s withdraw, my lord.

Let's step out of sight, my lord.

Exeunt King and Polonius.

Enter Hamlet.

Hamlet

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

To exist, or to stop existing — that is the question.

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

Is it nobler to endure whatever cruel luck throws at you, or to fight back against an ocean of troubles and, by fighting, end them?

To die—to sleep,

No more;

To die is only to sleep — nothing more.

and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d.

And if a sleep could end the heartache and the thousand shocks that come with having a body, that's an ending anyone would pray for.

To die, to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream—

To sleep — and maybe to dream.

ay, there’s the rub,

There's the catch.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause.

Because what dreams might come in that sleep of death, once we've shed the tangle of this life, is what stops us short.

There’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

That's the thought that makes us put up with suffering for so many years.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin?

Otherwise, who would carry the beatings and insults of the years, the tyrant's injustice, the arrogant man's contempt, the ache of love that's thrown back at you, the courts that never rule, the rudeness of officials, and all the abuse that a patient decent person takes from worthless people — when he could settle the whole account himself with a bare blade?

Who would these fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns,

Who would bear these loads, grunting and sweating through an exhausting life, except that we're afraid of something after death — that undiscovered country from which no traveler ever comes back?

puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

It confuses the will, and makes us put up with the evils we already know rather than run toward ones we don't.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

So thinking too much turns us all into cowards,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

and the natural color of our resolve goes pale and sickly under the shadow of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment,

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

and plans of real weight and consequence get diverted by it and never become actions at all.

Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia!

But quiet now — the lovely Ophelia.

Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember’d.

Beautiful girl, remember all my sins in your prayers.

Ophelia

Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

My good lord, how have you been these many days?

Hamlet

I humbly thank you;

I thank you humbly.

well, well, well.

Well, well, well.

Ophelia

My lord, I have remembrances of yours

That I have longed long to re-deliver.

My lord, I have keepsakes of yours that I've been wanting to give back for a long time.

I pray you, now receive them.

Please take them now.

Hamlet

No, not I.

No, not me.

I never gave you aught.

I never gave you anything.

Ophelia

My honour’d lord, you know right well you did,

And with them words of so sweet breath compos’d

As made the things more rich;

My honored lord, you know perfectly well you did — and with them words so sweetly made that they made the gifts worth more.

their perfume lost,

Take these again;

That sweetness is gone now, so take them back.

for to the noble mind

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

To anyone with a decent heart, rich presents turn worthless once the giver turns cold.

There, my lord.

Here, my lord.

Hamlet

Ha, ha!

Ha!

Are you honest?

Ophelia

My lord?

Hamlet

Are you fair?

Are you beautiful?

Ophelia

What means your lordship?

What do you mean, my lord?

Hamlet

That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse

to your beauty.

That if you're both honest and beautiful, your honesty shouldn't let your beauty anywhere near it.

Ophelia

Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Could beauty keep better company than honesty, my lord?

Hamlet

Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from

what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty

into his likeness.

Yes, certainly — because beauty will turn honesty into a pimp long before honesty can make beauty resemble itself.

This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives

it proof.

That used to sound like a paradox, but these days it's simply proved.

I did love you once.

Ophelia

Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

You certainly made me believe so, my lord.

Hamlet

You should not have believed me;

You shouldn't have believed me.

for virtue cannot so inoculate our old

stock but we shall relish of it.

Goodness can't be grafted onto our rotten human stock without the old taste coming through.

I loved you not.

I didn't love you.

Ophelia

I was the more deceived.

Then I was all the more fooled.

Hamlet

Get thee to a nunnery.

Get yourself to a convent.

Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?

Why would you want to give birth to 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'm reasonably decent myself, and still I could accuse myself of things so bad it would have been better if my mother had never had 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.

I'm very proud, vengeful, ambitious, with more offenses at my command than I have thoughts to hold them, imagination to shape them, or time to carry them out.

What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and

heaven?

What are men like me doing crawling around between earth and heaven?

We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us.

We're all complete villains — don't believe any of us.

Go thy ways to a

nunnery.

Go on, get to a convent.

Where’s your father?

Where's your father?

Ophelia

At home, my lord.

Hamlet

Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but

in’s own house.

Then lock the doors on him, so he can only play the fool in his own house.

Farewell.

Goodbye.

Ophelia

O help him, you sweet heavens!

Sweet heaven, help him!

Hamlet

If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou

as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

If you do get married, here's the curse I'll give you as a wedding present: be as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, and you still won't escape being slandered.

Get

thee to a nunnery, go:

Get to a convent, go.

farewell.

Goodbye.

Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a

fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them.

Or if you absolutely must marry, marry an idiot — because clever men know all too well what monsters you make of them.

a nunnery, go; and quickly too.

To a convent, go, and quickly.

Farewell.

Goodbye.

Ophelia

O heavenly powers, restore him!

Heavenly powers, make him well again!

Hamlet

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough.

I've heard all about your face-painting, too.

God hath given you one

face, and you make yourselves another.

God gives you one face and you make yourselves another.

You jig, you amble, and you

lisp, and nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your

ignorance.

You sway and sashay and lisp, you give cute nicknames to God's creatures, and you pass off your loose behavior as innocence.

Go to, I’ll no more on’t, it hath made me mad.

Enough — I'll have no more of it. It's driven me mad.

I say, we

will have no more marriages.

I tell you, there will be no more marriages.

Those that are married already, all but

one, shall live;

Those who are already married — all but one — can live.

the rest shall keep as they are.

The rest will stay as they are.

To a nunnery, go.

To a convent, go.

Exit.

Ophelia

O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!

Oh, what a magnificent mind has been wrecked here!

The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,

Th’expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

Th’observ’d of all observers, quite, quite down!

The courtier's eye, the soldier's sword, the scholar's tongue, the hope and flower of this whole country, the model everyone copied, the man every eye followed — ruined, utterly ruined.

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,

That suck’d the honey of his music vows,

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh,

That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth

Blasted with ecstasy.

And I, the most miserable and cast-off of women, who drank in the honey of his promises, now have to watch that noble, commanding mind clang like beautiful bells knocked out of tune, that matchless shape and face of a young man in full bloom blighted by madness.

O woe is me,

T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see.

Oh, how wretched I am, to have seen what I saw and to see what I see now.

Enter King and Polonius.

King

Love?

His affections do not that way tend,

His feelings don't run that way.

Nor what he spake, though it lack’d form a little,

Was not like madness.

And what he said, though it was a bit shapeless, wasn't really madness.

There’s something in his soul

O’er which his melancholy sits on brood,

And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose

Will be some danger,

There's something buried in his soul that his depression is sitting on like a hen on an egg, and I suspect that whatever hatches from it will be dangerous.

which for to prevent,

I have in quick determination

Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England

For the demand of our neglected tribute:

To head that off, I've made a quick decision: he'll be sent to England at once, to collect the tribute money they owe us.

Haply the seas and countries different,

With variable objects, shall expel

This something settled matter in his heart,

Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus

From fashion of himself.

Perhaps new seas and foreign countries, and the change of scene, will drive out whatever has settled in his heart — the thing his brain keeps hammering at, that has knocked him so far out of himself.

What think you on’t?

What do you think of that?

Polonius

It shall do well.

It's a good plan.

But yet do I believe

The origin and commencement of his grief

Sprung from neglected love.

But I still believe the source and beginning of his misery is love that was pushed away.

How now, Ophelia?

— Well, Ophelia?

You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,

We heard it all.

You don't have to tell us what Lord Hamlet said; we heard all of it.

My lord, do as you please,

But if you hold it fit, after the play,

Let his queen mother all alone entreat him

To show his grief, let her be round with him,

And I’ll be plac’d, so please you, in the ear

Of all their conference.

My lord, do as you like, but if you think it's wise, after the play let his mother the Queen get him alone and beg him to explain his misery. Let her be blunt with him — and I'll be hidden, with your permission, where I can hear everything they say.

If she find him not,

To England send him; or confine him where

Your wisdom best shall think.

If she can't get to the bottom of him, send him to England, or shut him up wherever you judge best.

King

It shall be so.

So it will be.

Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.

Madness in important people can't be left unwatched.

Exeunt.

Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1 summary

Who appears in this scene

King, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Hamlet — A room in the Castle.

Famous lines in Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1, explained

“To be, or not to be, that is the question:” (line 62): Hamlet is asking whether it is better to stay alive or to end his life — the question the whole speech then argues out. Notice that he never says "I": he frames his own despair as a general problem about existence, which is part of why the line has outlived its play. It is not a decision but a deliberation, and the fact that he cannot settle it is the point.
“Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them?” (line 63): The two options are passive endurance and active resistance, put in military terms: standing still while fate shoots at you, or attacking. Shakespeare deliberately makes the second image impossible — you cannot defeat a sea by drawing a sword on it — which quietly suggests that fighting back here means dying in the attempt. "Outrageous fortune" means luck that is violent and undeserved, not merely annoying.
“To die—to sleep, / No more; and by a sleep to say we end / The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to” (line 66): Hamlet tries to make death sound harmless by calling it sleep: an end to emotional pain and to the endless physical suffering that comes with simply being alive and having a body. "Heir to" is a legal word — these shocks are the inheritance nobody can refuse. The comfort collapses one line later, because sleep is exactly the state in which dreams happen.
“To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub, / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come” (line 71): This is the hinge of the speech. If death is sleep, it might not be blank — something might be waiting, and for a Christian audience that means judgement. A "rub" was an obstruction on a bowling green that knocks the ball off course, so Hamlet is saying that this single thought derails the entire argument for suicide.
“The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns” (line 85): Death as an unexplored land nobody has ever come back from — so no report of it exists, and the ignorance itself is what terrifies. There is a deliberate crack in the logic: Hamlet has met a traveller who returned, his father's ghost, which suggests he is not fully convinced by the ghost even now. The phrase later became the title of a Star Trek film and a standard euphemism for death.
“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all” (line 89): "Conscience" here means consciousness, self-awareness, thinking a thing through — not guilt about right and wrong. Hamlet's conclusion is that reflection itself is what disables action: the more thoroughly you consider a bold plan, the paler your nerve becomes and the more likely the plan is to drift off and never happen. It is the play's diagnosis of Hamlet himself, delivered by Hamlet, who still does not act on it.
“Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?” (line 126): On the surface Hamlet is telling Ophelia to enter a convent so she will never marry or bear children into a corrupt world. But "nunnery" was also Elizabethan slang for a brothel, so the same words are an insult, and audiences hear both at once. Which meaning dominates depends on whether Hamlet has realised he is being watched — the cruelty may be aimed past Ophelia at the men behind the arras.
“O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!” (line 150): Ophelia mourns Hamlet as though he has died, cataloguing what he was — courtier, soldier, scholar, the model young men imitated. Her grief is important structurally: it is the play's clearest outside testimony that Hamlet's madness looks real, and it shows that his cruelty has damaged her long before her father's death finishes the job.

What happens in this scene

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern report their failure to the King and Queen: Hamlet admits he feels 'unbalanced' but deflects every probe 'with a cunning kind of madness.' The one bright spot is his interest in the visiting actors, who will perform tonight. Claudius sends Gertrude away and sets his trap: he and Polonius will hide while Ophelia, planted with a prayer book, is left where Hamlet will 'run into' her — a test of Polonius's theory that rejected love is the cause. Polonius's throwaway line about sugaring over the devil with pious looks stings Claudius into a private aside that changes the play: his 'deed' is uglier than a prostitute's painted cheek — the first confirmation, outside the Ghost's word, that Claudius is guilty.

They hide, and Hamlet enters with 'To be, or not to be' — weighing existence against non-existence, endurance against a suicide he can't commit to because of 'what dreams might come' in death, that 'undiscovered country from which no traveler ever comes back.' He concludes that 'thinking too much turns us all into cowards' — then sees Ophelia. She returns his gifts; he veers from courtesy into interrogation ('Are you honest? ... Are you beautiful?'), claims 'I did love you once,' then 'I didn't love you,' and — right after abruptly asking 'Where's your father?' and being told 'At home' — savages her: get to a nunnery, all men are villains, there will be no more marriages, 'all but one' who is married shall live. He exits; Ophelia mourns the wreck of 'what a magnificent mind.' Claudius emerges convinced: not love, and 'wasn't really madness' either — something dangerous is brooding in Hamlet, and he will be shipped to England at once. Polonius, clinging to his love theory, proposes one more eavesdrop: after the play, let the Queen confront Hamlet alone while Polonius listens hidden.

Why this scene matters

Three fuses are lit here. Claudius's aside gives the audience — though not Hamlet — independent proof of the murder, so we now watch Hamlet's doubts knowing they're unnecessary. The England decision begins the plot that will carry Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths and Hamlet out of Denmark. And Polonius's proposal to hide in the Queen's chamber schedules his own killing in 3.4, which triggers everything after it — Ophelia's real madness, Laertes's revenge, the final duel. The nunnery scene is also the blow Ophelia doesn't recover from; her lament here is the healthy woman's last speech. Meanwhile the soliloquy gives the play's delay its philosophy: reflection itself, Hamlet concludes, is what strangles action.

Key decisions and motivations

Claudius makes the scene's decisive move: after the eavesdrop he stops treating Hamlet as a patient to be diagnosed and starts treating him as a threat to be removed — England 'at once.' Ophelia chooses obedience, letting herself be positioned as bait and returning the gifts as instructed; the scene shows what that obedience costs her. Polonius chooses his theory over the evidence, doubling down on love-melancholy and staking one more surveillance on it. Hamlet's choices are the debated ones: in the soliloquy he chooses, once again, neither death nor action; with Ophelia, his pivot to cruelty right after 'Where's your father?' looks like a decision to perform for hidden listeners — though the text never confirms how much he knows.

Themes in this scene

Surveillance and performance saturate the scene: Ophelia is staged with a prop book, the King and Polonius watch unseen, Claudius confesses to wearing a 'painted word,' Hamlet rails at women for making themselves 'another' face — everyone is acting, and everyone suspects everyone else of acting. The soliloquy turns the play's action problem into philosophy: thought versus deed, with consciousness itself as the coward-maker. And the nunnery exchange runs the honesty-versus-appearance theme through gender — beauty corrupting honesty 'into a pimp' — as Hamlet's disgust with his mother's remarriage spills onto the one woman who did nothing to earn it.

Common questions about this scene

Is 'To be, or not to be' really about suicide?: It starts there — existence versus non-existence, and whether anyone would bear life's abuses 'when he could settle the whole account himself with a bare blade' — but notice that Hamlet never says 'I.' He argues it as a universal problem ('we,' 'us all'), and the reason for staying alive is not hope but dread: fear of what follows death. By the end it has widened into a diagnosis of why people fail to act at all — 'thinking too much turns us all into cowards' — which is the play's own delay problem stated as philosophy.
Why is Hamlet so cruel to Ophelia? Does he love her?: The scene supports both answers and refuses to settle it. 'I did love you once' and 'I didn't love you' sit forty words apart, and the tenderness of 'remember all my sins in your prayers' precedes the savagery. The turn comes immediately after 'Where's your father?' — and her lie ('At home') may confirm to him that he's being watched, making the tirade partly a performance for Claudius and partly real fury at women displaced from Gertrude onto Ophelia. What's not ambiguous is the damage: her closing speech shows the cruelty landing on someone who still loves him.
What does Claudius conclude from spying on Hamlet, and why is it a turning point?: He rejects Polonius's theory flatly — 'Love? His feelings don't run that way' — and, more dangerously, decides Hamlet's talk 'wasn't really madness': something hidden is brooding in him, and 'whatever hatches from it will be dangerous.' From this moment Claudius acts against Hamlet rather than merely observing him, starting with the England plan. Combined with his guilty aside earlier in the scene, it means both hunter and hunted now know, or nearly know, the truth — the cat-and-mouse phase of the play begins here.

Keep reading

About this translation: the original text follows the public-domain Project Gutenberg Globe edition; the modern English translation was written in-house for Polytranslator and is reviewed on an ongoing basis (last revised August 2026). Free to print and photocopy for classroom use. Cite as: “Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1. Polytranslator side-by-side translation, polytranslator.com/shakespeare/hamlet/act-3-scene-1.”

Studying the language itself? Our Shakespearean English course teaches thou/thee, the verbs, and the meter — free through Unit 2. Or try the Shakespearean English translator.