You are here

All Site ContentHamletAct 1Scene 2
Back to the Play
The Royal "We"
Discussion
Act 1,
Scene 2
Lines 1-39

An explanation of Claudius’ use of the royal “we” in Act 1, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s Hamlet.

[The throne room of Elsinore castle. King Claudius enters with his newly wed Queen, Hamlet's recently widowed mother. They are followed by the king's chief counselor Polonius, Polonius' son Laertes, his daugher Ophelia, and other nobles.]

Claudius 

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death,
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;
Yet so far has discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometimes sister, now our queen,
Th' imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we (as 'twere with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole) 
Taken to wife. Nor have we herein barred  
Your better wisdoms which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
Now follows that you know — young Fortinbras, 
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
He has not failed to pester us with messages,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father with all bonds of law
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
[Enter messengers]
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting. 
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway (uncle of young Fortinbras
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose) to suppress
His further gait herein in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions are all made
Out of his subjects. And we here dispatch 
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,
For bearing of this greeting to old Norway,
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king more than the scope
Of these delated articles allow.
Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty. 

Medieval monarchs often referred to themselves in the plural to reinforce the idea that they were chosen by God. When a king refers to himself as “we,” he means “God and I".

In his address to the court, Claudius uses the first person plural form (we, us, our, ourself) fifteen times. Generally, he is referring to himself, but sometimes his statements could be interpreted as referring to all the Danes.