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Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.

Hamlet says this to his mother, Queen Gertrude, as he physically and verbally confronts her Act 3, Scene 4. It is a highly uncomfortable moment (in a scene that also includes Hamlet accidentally stabbing Polonius to death), as Hamlet’s long-simmering resentment at his mother and her corrupt alliance with his uncle finally boils over. By “glass” he means a mirror. He is symbolically holding a mirror up to her horrible actions, not literally.

How now! A rat! Dead for a ducat, dead!

Hamlet makes this joke as he prepares to stab the person eavesdropping on him as he confronts his mother with her sins in Act 3, Scene 4. The twist in the plot is that he assumes that his uncle Claudius is hiding behind the curtain when it is actually Polonius. Thus, Hamlet has been thwarted yet again from achieving his goal of killing his uncle. (By “dead for a ducat” he is essentially saying that he’d bet a ducat—a valuable coin—that the rat behind the tapestry is/will be dead.)

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.

Hamlet delivers this stinging appraisal of Polonius after discovering he has accidentally killed him (mistaking him for Claudius) in Act 3, Scene 4. While this quote is meant by Hamlet as his assessment of Polonius as a person, it also reflects on him since Hamlet is showing no signs of remorse nor is he accepting any responsibility for his careless act of homicide. In fact, the only regret Hamlet expresses is when he says, “I took thee for thy better,” which is his cruel way of saying that he thought he was killing someone more important that Polonius. You can read more about this quote in Quotes by Character: Polonius (the fifth quote).

Some scholars have described Hamlet’s accidental killing of Polonius and his discovery of it as an important turning point in the development (some would say the disintegration) of his character. From this point on, Hamlet will ponder and deliberate much less and act far more instinctively.

O Hamlet, speak no more!
Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grainèd spots
As will not leave their tinct.

With these words, Gertrude begs Hamlet to stop confronting her with her sins in the murder of her husband and tells him that he has succeeded in getting her to admit her guilt and accept responsibility for behavior. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Character: Gertrude (the fourth quote).

Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed,
Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty—

In Act 3, Scene 4, after Hamlet has confronted his mother Gertrude with her crimes and she has told him that she accepts responsibility for them, he continues to berate in this quote with intense, graphic language (which translates to “you lie in the sweaty stench of your dirty sheets, wet with corruption, making love”) at which point she cuts him off and tells him, “These words like daggers enter in my ears.” Soon after this, the Ghost appears and chides Hamlet for rebuking his mother so harshly and for not focusing on killing Claudius.

This the very coinage of your brain.
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

This quote by Gertrude to Hamlet in Act 3, Scene 4 comes after Hamlet has expressed surprise that his mother is unable to see or hear the Ghost (of her dead husband). In essence she tells him that he is only imagining a ghost and that hallucinations are a common side effect of madness. The fact Gertrude cannot see the Ghost, but Hamlet (and the watchmen) raises some points related to ambiguity in the play and to King Hamlet’s enduring devotion to Gertrude that are discussed in Quotes by Character: Gertrude (the fifth quote).
 

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