Given below are a few famous lines from Shakespeare's plays. Match them with the play in which they occur.

Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, As you Like it, The Merchant of Venice

a) ‘Friends, Romans country men

Lend me your ears’

b) ‘All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;’

c) ‘The quality of mercy is not strained;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath.’

d) ‘If music be the food of love play on’

In Shakespearian plays, soliloquies are popular. A soliloquy is a speech rendered by a character in a play, which is meant for the audience / reader.

Have you heard or come across these idiomatic expressions? What do they mean?

a) Hobson's choice

b) on the horns of a dilemma

c) cat on the wall

d) between the devil and the deep sea

Given below are a few statements about the soliloquy. Are they true or false?

a) A long speech spoken by a single character that reveals inner thoughts.

b) The character reveals inner thoughts, and puzzles out personal problems

c) Only the male character renders a soliloquy

c) Only the male character renders a soliloquy

d) It's a part of a dialogue with other characters

e) It is rendered in the final scene.

Complete the summary based on your understanding

Hamlet was in a deep dilemma. He wondered if he should ___________________ to live or die. His mental conflict centered around ___________________ possibilities. He asks if - it is nobler to ___________________ the slings and arrows of an unbearable situation than to fight against the sea of ___________________ that afflicts one and by opposing them, end them. He pondered over the prospect of dying because with death we _______________ the heartaches and the innumerable natural ___________________ that human beings have to endure. It is an end that we all hope for -to sleep ___________________.

There is a problem in this solution also .In the sleep of death we might have ___________________ and these dreams add more ___________________.

Despite the calamity, the dreams usher, death is ___________________ because none can tolerate the whips and scorns of time. In such traumatic situations, a ____________person would choose to make the final settlement by ending his life with a sharp knife.

A weak-minded person is unable to bear the ___________________ of life and so chooses to end his life. But what prevents him from embracing this option is he dreads the ___________________after death. No ___________________man has come back to share his post- death experience. Luckily this makes the meek, cowardly to put up with the travails of life and not ___________________to the thought of committing suicide. There is a general belief that those who commit suicide have a guaranteed place in hell. This belief, fortunately, ___________________one from putting an end to one's life. According to Hamlet, too much thinking ___________________ one’s action.

Read the following extracts and answer the questions:

a) 'Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep…'

(i) Identify the figure of speech in the first line

(ii) What, according to Hamlet, is the solution to the problems that engulf us?

(iii) ‘Sleep’ here, refers to ________________. What figure of speech is it?

b) 'For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love.'

i) What are the situations mentioned here that force one to end one's life?

ii) Identify the figure of speech in the first line and explain.