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Word Nerd: "tent"
Context and Language Videos
Act 2,
Scene 2
Lines 581-589

An explanation of the word "tent" in Act 2, Scene 2 of myShakespeare's Hamlet.

myShakespeare | Hamlet 2.2 Word Nerd: Tent

Hamlet

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father     
Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,    
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen    
May be a devil, and the devil hath power
T'assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy 
Video Transcript: 

SARAH: Hamlet intends to tent Claudius to the quick, meaning that he intends to probe him deeply and find out whether he's guilty.

RALPH: A tent is a piece of rolled up soft material used to cleanse or probe a wound; so to tent means to probe.

SARAH: The original meaning of the word "quick" was alive, as in "the quick and the dead", a phrase, by the way, found in the book of common prayer in Shakespeare's time. Today, we use it to refer to the sensitive flesh under the fingernails, when we say "cut something to the quick."

RALPH: Eww — really?

SARAH: Yes, Ralph — really. So Hamlet intends to probe Claudius to his most living, or his most sensitive secrets.