SARAH: When Claudius says that his offense has the primal eldest curse upon it, he's referring to the biblical story in Genesis where God places a curse on Cain for killing his brother Abel, just as Claudius has killed his brother, King Hamlet.

RALPH: "Primal eldest" sounds redundant, but there's a little word play here. Primal means from the earliest time. But it also resonates with the theme of this monologue because in Shakespeare's time, prime was the name for morning prayers.

SARAH: Because Cain and Abel were sons of Adam and Eve, this was God's very first, or eldest primal, curse. But it was also an eldest curse because Cain was the eldest of the sons.