Good evening and welcome once again to brush up your Shakespeare, where we make Shakespeare fun and easy.

You may remember that in each episode we focus on one line from the scene that we are examining the scene for tonight's episode is Hamlet Act 1, scene 2.

The line from that scene that we will be memorizing together is this, a little more than kin and less than kind.

Say it with me, a little more than kin, K-I-N, and less than kind, K-I-N-D.

And one more time, a little more than can and less than kind.

As I said, we're now in Act 1, Scene 2 of Hamlet, and this scene can be divided into three parts.

The first part is the court scene.

The second part is Hamlet's soliloquy.

And the third part is Hamlet hears about the ghost.

Let's start with the court scene.

We leave the castle battlements of scene one, where the ghost of Hamlet's father has just appeared to several guards and also to Hamlet's dear friend Horatio.

Scene two moves us inside the castle,

where the new king, Claudius, is holding court.

Claudius is an important character in this play,

and he dominates the first part of this scene with a long speech.

As you recall, Hamlet's father, King Hamlet has died only about two months before.

And in the meantime, the brother of Hamlet's father, Claudius, has married Hamlet's mother and

become the new king of Denmark.

This all strikes Prince Hamlet is moving way too quickly for his taste and he is not

happy about the situation not happy at all. Everyone else seems to have already

moved on from his father's death, but not so for young Hamlet. He wears black as a sign of his continuing mourning.

I trust I am not revealing too much when I say that Claudius is the villain of the play.

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