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

The line we're going to be learning for tonight's show is,

To thine own self be true.

Say it with me to thine own self be true.

And once again, please, to thine own self be true.

We are now in Act 1, Scene 3 of Hamlet. You will recall that at the end of the last scene,

Horatio had told Hamlet that his father's ghost was walking the castle ramparts at night and Hamlet had agreed to join them that

very night to see for himself and try to get the ghost to talk to him.

But that's not what's going to happen in scene three. We're going to have to wait until scenes four and five for that to happen. In the meantime, we have scene three, which takes place in Polonius's house. But this scene is critical to understanding what happens going forward in the play.

Not only that, this scene contains some of the most famous lines Shakespeare ever wrote, and one of those lines is our line for today

to thy known self be true.

A little personal story.

I mentioned before that I played Claudius in 11th grade in my high school production of Hamlet.

It was the first play I had ever auditioned for and I was excited at the prospect of playing Claudius

but I was also a bit overwhelmed and

daunted by the number of lines I had to memorize. The part of Polonius went to

Stan Borg, who was one of the drama kids and had been in theater in the high school for a long time before this.

I distinctly remember one day shortly after the parts were announced when Stan Borg approached

be in the school library.

He wanted to tell me something.

He motioned me over and whispered to me,

I was going over the script last night.

...