Good evening and welcome once again to brush up your Shakespeare, where we make Shakespeare fun and easy, the way it was always meant to be.

This is episode 9 and today still in Hamlet we will be

concluding the second part of Act 2 scene 2 which also happens to be the end of

Act 2 itself. The line for today is the plays the thing. Say it with me now, the plays the thing. And one more time, the plays the thing.

If you want extra credit, you can memorize the rest of the line,

the plays the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

This is actually the very last line. the conscience of the king.

This is actually the very last line of this scene,

and it also concludes one of Hamlet's most powerful soliloquies.

We'll get to that in a few minutes.

Act to scene two, the scene we're in,

is an enormously long scene,

which is why we have divided it up into two parts for this podcast.

In the f-

hmm, God damn it, Act 2.

Act 2,

Act 2, scene 2, the scene we're in is an enormously long scene, which is why we have divided it in two for

this podcast. In the first part of scene two, which we covered last week, the King and Queen sent for Hamlet's old schoolmate Chums, Rosencrantz, and Gildenstern, to spy on Hamlet and try to get out of him

why it is he's acting so strangely. Polonius tells the king and queen that he has figured out

that Hamlet is acting so oddly because of his unrequited love

for Polonius's daughter, Ophelia.

Polonius has a strange encounter with Hamlet,

...