Hamlet Sex Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Act.Scene.Line) according to the Norton edition

Quote #10

GHOST
Do not forget. This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But look, amazement on thy mother sits.
O, step between her and her fighting soul.
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Speak to her, Hamlet.
(3.4.126-131)

It looks like Hamlet was so busy laying into Gertrude for sleeping with Claudius that he forgot all about the ghost's orders for him to leave Gertrude "to heaven"—almost as if he's more upset by Gertrude's sexuality than his father's murder.

Quote #11

HAMLET
[…]That it should come to this:
But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king, that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and Earth.
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on. And yet, within a month
(Let me not think on 't; frailty, thy name is woman!)
[…]
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good.
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
(1.2.141-150; 161-164)

Hamlet's got a serious problem with mom. It's not just that he's disgusted by Gertrude's incestuous marriage to Claudius —Hamlet can hardly stand to think about his mother having sex, period. Which, um, seems normal to us. What's not normal is the way that he keeps thinking about it, anyway.