Introduction
The Danish Prince came home to find his father mysteriously dead, and his uncle ready to marry his mother the Queen, and claim the crown.
HAMLET, heir to the throne of Denmark, was away from court when he heard his father had died, apparently of a snake-bite.
His distress only grew when he found, on his return to his home and to his love Ophelia, that his widowed mother was already preparing to marry his uncle, Claudius, so making him King in Hamlet’s place.
Yet that same night, the ghost of Hamlet’s father appeared. He told Hamlet how he had been poisoned by Claudius, and bound the boy to exact revenge.
Hamlet was caught in an agony of indecision, which he masked with increasingly eccentric behaviour.
It was only when his mother confronted him about his odd manner that things began to move.
As they talked, Hamlet heard a sound from behind the curtain. He struck with his sword, thinking it was a rat, and then, maybe Claudius. But it was Polonius, Ophelia’s father; Hamlet, too, was now a murderer of the innocent.
Précis
Hamlet, heir to the throne of Denmark, returned home to find that his father was dead, and his uncle ready to marry the Queen and take the crown. His father’s ghost demanded that Hamlet avenge his murder. Even as he hesitated, unwilling to take any life, Hamlet killed the father of Ophelia, his lover, by accident. (56 / 60 words)
Hamlet, heir to the throne of Denmark, returned home to find that his father was dead, and his uncle ready to marry the Queen and take the crown. His father’s ghost demanded that Hamlet avenge his murder. Even as he hesitated, unwilling to take any life, Hamlet killed the father of Ophelia, his lover, by accident.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, although, despite, just, must, otherwise, ought, whether.
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
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