TEXT:
CLAUDIUS
O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
NOTES:
Soliloquy
A soliloquy is a dramatic device whereby a playwright has a character speak to themselves alone on stage. The word itself comes from Latin (solus, alone, and loquor, I speak...). Shakespeare's plays are filled with countless examples of the form, in comedy, history, and tragedy, and indeed the device has been popular from as far back as the writings of Montaigne (believed to have inspired Shakespeare) all the way as far as contemporary versions of it, such as Netflix' House of Cards.
The First Quarto is an early text of the play, and is at least 1500 lines shorter than the better-established texts known as Q2 (the Second Quarto) and F1 (the First Folio). It was all but lost until the splendidly-named Sir Henry Bunbury found a copy of it in the 1820s, and the text has provoked intense debate for nearly 200 years. Since the text is significantly different to the more familiar versions of Q2 and F1, I refer to it only when there are especially illuminating passages worth mentioning. It was given the full scholarly treatment by the excellent Arden Shakespeare in 2007, when as part of the 3rd Series it was printed in its own right, alongside the F1 text. You can find more details of that edition by clicking here.
Curse of Cain
Cain was the first murderer - he killed his brother Abel. He lied about the murder when God asked about it, and was cursed to a life as a fugitive and a wanderer, since the earth where Abel’s blood spilled would never yield any crops for him. Abel’s murder crops up frequently in the play - Claudius himself makes oblique reference to it very early on, when he mentions' “the first corpse” in his speech about how death is a part of life, and ‘must be so’ as he tries to assuage Hamlet. Abel, the first murder victim, was killed by his brother - it is no accident that Shakespeare plants this little reference in Claudius’ mouth. Cain was notoriously punished - and in some interpretations marked or branded to identify him for his crime - and in this soliloquy Claudius worries that the heinous crime of fratricide will haunt him too.