Hamlet Question #3?

Question:

Hamlet Question #3?

In what senses are Hamlet's last words plays on words (puns)?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Laertes
...he...may give his saying deed...no further
Than the main VOICE OF DENMARK goes withal.

Claudius
Be as ourself in Denmark

Hamlet
O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad DREAMS.
Guildenstern
Which DREAMS indeed are AMBITION

Hamlet
....TO DIE, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause:

Hamlet at heart is just a student who wants to return to Wittenberg. But he cannot breach the custom that unites a king (or his heir) with his kingdom. He cannot reform his "old stock." His choice is not his own - he is subject to the "voice of Denmark." Both his father and his uncle want him to be like them "in Denmark." Hamlet's dilemma is whether "to be or not to be"..."so like the king THAT was and IS THE QUESTION of these wars." He kills Claudius only after he knows that he himself is dying, so he can avoid inheriting the kingdom and being dragged into hell by his union with it, as Claudius was.

In the end he finallly silences the "voice of Denmark" - by going to his final rest, free from dreams of ambition. "THE REST IS SILENCE."

When Hamlet said "the rest is SILENCE," He meant that he was finally free from the "VOICE OF DENMARK." When Hamlet was ranting in Ophelia's grave, Gertrude likened his insane ranting to "GOLDen couplets" and predicted that his sanity/silence would soon return - which it did when he realized that he had "from himself been taken away" (by the voice of Denmark, i.e. his vow to his father that his father's will should live all alone in his brain).

The play had begun with the question, "Who's there?" and the injunction to "UnFOLD yourself." Hamlet, with his vow to his father had enfolded himself in his father's value-system, just as he enFOLDED the note "in the form of the other, the changling never known." By the end of the play, he had finally unfolded himself.

Osrick was a reflection or shadow of Hamlet. Hamlet said, "to know a man well, were to know himself," but he admitted to the vice of knowing Osric. Osric was rich in the possession of DIRT - Hamlet was heir to a graveyard. The king wanted to place a wager on Hamlet's head - Hamlet wanted to place a hat on Osric's head. The old king ordered Hamlet to remember - Hamlet told Osric to remember. Osric's purse was empty, all his GOLDen words were spent. Hamlet's purse, with his father's signet, was finally empty - he was ready for silence.

Act I, Scene 3
Laertes
...he...may give his saying deed...no further
Than the main VOICE OF DENMARK goes withal.

Act II, Scene 2
Hamlet
Pray God, your VOICE, like a piece of uncurrent GOLD, be not cracked within the ring.

Act V, Scene 1
Gertrude
This is mere madness,
And thus a while the fit will work on him,
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her GOLDen couplets are disclosed,
His SILENCE will sit drooping.

Act V, Scene 2
Hamlet
I had my father??s signet in my PURSE,
Which was the model of that Danish seal,
FOLDED the writ up in form of the other,
Subscribed it, gave't the impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known.

Act V, Scene 2
Horatio:
His PURSE is empty already: all ??s GOLDen words are spent.

Act V, Scene 2
Hamlet
??the rest is SILENCE.