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All Site ContentHamletAct 3Scene 2
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"You might have rhymed"
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Act 3,
Scene 2
Lines 262-266

An explanation of Horatio’s joke in Act 3, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s Hamlet.

Hamlet

"For thou dost know, Oh, Damon dear,    
This realm dismantled was
of Jove himself, and now reigns here
A very, very — pajock."

Horatio   

You might have rhymed.

Note Horatio’s joke, here. Hamlet’s poem would have rhymed if he had called Claudius an ass, rather than a pajock. In the accent of Elizabethan English, the words “was” and “ass” rhymed.