"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is a line from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. It is spoken by Queen Gertrude in response to the insincere overacting of a character in the play within a play created by Prince Hamlet to elicit evidence of his uncle's guilt in the murder of his father, the King of Denmark.
The phrase is used in everyday speech to indicate doubt of someone's sincerity, especially regarding the truth of a strong denial.
The line is in iambic pentameter. It is found in Act III, Scene II of Hamlet, where it is spoken by Hamlet's mother Queen Gertrude. Hamlet believes that his father the king was murdered by his uncle Claudius, who then married Gertrude. Hamlet stages the play Murder of Gonzago which follows a similar sequence of events, to test whether viewing it will trigger a guilty conscience in Claudius.
Hamlet, Gertrude, Claudius, and others watch the play-within-the-play, as the Player Queen declares in flowery language that she will never remarry if her husband dies. [1] Hamlet then turns to his mother and asks her, "Madam, how like you this play?" She replies, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks", meaning that the Player Queen's protestations of love and fidelity are too excessive to be believed. [1] [2]
The quotation comes from the Second Quarto edition of the play. Later versions contain the simpler line, "The lady protests too much, methinks". [3] [4]
The line is commonly used to imply that someone who denies something very strongly is hiding the truth of it; [2] however, in the play, "protest" has the older meaning of "insist (that something is true), vow" – affirming her fidelity – rather than denying infidelity. [5] The line's allusion to Gertrude's (lack of) fidelity to her husband has become a cliché of sexually fickle womanhood. [6] It is a shorthand expression conveying doubt in any person's truthfulness, even when the subject is male. [7] It is sometimes altered to "the laddie doth protest too much". [8] [ non-primary source needed ] The phrase is often shortened to "[X] protests too much". [9] A common misquotation places methinks first: "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." [2] [10]
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother. Hamlet is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others". It is widely considered one of the greatest plays of all time. Three different early versions of the play are extant: the First Quarto ; the Second Quarto ; and the First Folio. Each version includes lines and passages missing from the others.
Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, Macbeth most clearly reflects his relationship with King James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist, existential tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966. The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and the main setting is Denmark.
Hamlet is a 1948 British film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name, adapted and directed by and starring Laurence Olivier. Hamlet was Olivier's second film as director and the second of the three Shakespeare films that he directed. Hamlet was the first British film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It is the first sound film of the play in English.
Hamlet is a 1996 epic historical drama film and an adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, adapted and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars as Prince Hamlet. The film also features Derek Jacobi as King Claudius, Julie Christie as Queen Gertrude, Kate Winslet as Ophelia, Michael Maloney as Laertes, Richard Briers as Polonius, and Nicholas Farrell as Horatio. Other cast members include Robin Williams, Gérard Depardieu, Jack Lemmon, Billy Crystal, Rufus Sewell, Charlton Heston, Richard Attenborough, Judi Dench, John Gielgud, and Ken Dodd.
Polonius is a character in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. He is chief counsellor of the play's ultimate villain, Claudius, and the father of Laertes and Ophelia. Generally regarded as wrong in every judgment he makes over the course of the play, Polonius is described by William Hazlitt as a "sincere" father, but also "a busy-body, [who] is accordingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent". In Act II, Hamlet refers to Polonius as a "tedious old fool" and taunts him as a latter day "Jephtha".
Hebenon is a botanical substance described in William Shakespeare's tragic play Hamlet. The identity and nature of the poison has been a source of speculation for centuries.
King Claudius is a fictional character and the main antagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. He is the brother to King Hamlet, second husband to Gertrude and uncle and later stepfather to Prince Hamlet. He obtained the throne of Denmark by murdering his brother with poison and then marrying the late king's widow. He is loosely based on the Jutish chieftain Feng who appears in Chronicon Lethrense and in Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum. There has never been an actual Danish king of that name.
In William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Gertrude is Hamlet's mother and Queen of Denmark. Her relationship with Hamlet is somewhat turbulent, since he resents her marrying her husband's brother Claudius after he murdered the king. Gertrude reveals no guilt in her marriage with Claudius after the recent murder of her husband, and Hamlet begins to show signs of jealousy towards Claudius. According to Hamlet, she scarcely mourned her husband's death before marrying Claudius.
Hamlet, or Hamlet: The Drama of Vengeance, is a 1921 German film adaptation of the William Shakespeare play Hamlet starring and produced by Danish silent film actress Asta Nielsen. It was directed by Svend Gade and Heinz Schall. The film was shot at the Johannisthal Studios in Berlin.
Gertrude and Claudius is a novel by John Updike. It uses the known sources of William Shakespeare's Hamlet to tell a story that draws on a rather straightforward revenge tale in medieval Denmark, as depicted by Saxo Grammaticus in his twelfth-century Historiae Danicae. It also incorporates extra plot elements added by François de Belleforest in his Histoires tragiques, published in 1576, and furthermore brings in various elements from Shakespeare's play itself, including the name "Corambis" for Polonius from the "bad quarto" of 1603. This story, in its three forms, is primarily concerned with Hamlet avenging his father's murder, but the story starts earlier. The novel is concerned with that earlier life of Gertrude, Claudius, and old Hamlet, and it ends at the close of Act I, scene ii of Hamlet.
Prince Hamlet is the title character and protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet (1599–1601). He is the Prince of Denmark, nephew to the usurping Claudius, and son of King Hamlet, the previous King of Denmark. At the beginning of the play, he is conflicted whether, and how, to avenge the murder of his father, and struggles with his own sanity along the way. By the end of the tragedy, Hamlet has caused the deaths of Polonius, Laertes, Claudius, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two acquaintances of his from childhood. He is also indirectly involved in the deaths of his love Ophelia (drowning) and of his mother Gertrude.
Hamlet is a grand opera in five acts of 1868 by the French composer Ambroise Thomas, with a libretto by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier based on a French adaptation by Alexandre Dumas, père, and Paul Meurice of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
From its premiere at the turn of the 17th century, Hamlet has remained Shakespeare's best-known, most-imitated, and most-analyzed play. The character of Hamlet played a critical role in Sigmund Freud's explanation of the Oedipus complex. Even within the narrower field of literature, the play's influence has been strong. As Foakes writes, "No other character's name in Shakespeare's plays, and few in literature, have come to embody an attitude to life ... and been converted into a noun in this way."
Over fifty films of William Shakespeare's Hamlet have been made since 1900. Seven post-war Hamlet films have had a theatrical release: Laurence Olivier's Hamlet of 1948; Grigori Kozintsev's 1964 Russian adaptation; a film of the John Gielgud-directed 1964 Broadway production, Richard Burton's Hamlet, which played limited engagements that same year; Tony Richardson's 1969 version featuring Nicol Williamson as Hamlet and Anthony Hopkins as Claudius; Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 version starring Mel Gibson; Kenneth Branagh's full-text 1996 version; and Michael Almereyda's 2000 modernisation, starring Ethan Hawke.
What follows is an overview of the main characters in William Shakespeare's Hamlet, followed by a list and summary of the minor characters from the play. Three different early versions of the play survive: known as the First Quarto ("Q1"), Second Quarto ("Q2"), and First Folio ("F1"), each has lines—and even scenes—missing in the others, and some character names vary.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, A Tragic Episode, in Three Tabloids is a short parody play by W. S. Gilbert of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The main characters in Gilbert's play are King Claudius and Queen Gertrude of Denmark, their son Prince Hamlet, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Ophelia.
Ophelia is a character in William Shakespeare's drama Hamlet (1599–1601). She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and potential wife of Prince Hamlet, who, due to Hamlet's actions, ends up in a state of madness that ultimately leads to her drowning.
"Hoist with his own petard" is a phrase from a speech in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet that has become proverbial. The phrase's meaning is that a bomb-maker is blown off the ground by his own bomb ("petard"), and indicates an ironic reversal or poetic justice.
Ophelia is a 2018 historical romantic drama film directed by Claire McCarthy and written by Semi Chellas about the character of the same name from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Based on the novel by Lisa Klein, the film follows the story of Hamlet from Ophelia's perspective. It stars Daisy Ridley in the title role, alongside Naomi Watts, Clive Owen, George MacKay, Tom Felton and Devon Terrell. The dialogue is in modern English.