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"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is a line from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. It is spoken by Queen Gertrude in response to the insincere overacting of a character in the play within a play created by Prince Hamlet to elicit evidence of his uncle's guilt in the murder of his father, the King of Denmark.
The Meaning and Origin of ‘The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks’. In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle delves into the origins of a famous Shakespeare quotation.
‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks,’ is one of those lines from Shakespeare that is so very simple, but expresses enormous complexity of thought and emotion. It is spoken by Prince Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, in Act 3, Scene 2 of the play, Hamlet.
- Important Vocabulary to Know
- “The Lady Doth Protest Too much, Methinks” Meaning
- Where Did Shakespeare Use “The Lady Doth Protest Too much, Methinks?”
- Why Did Shakespeare Use “The Lady Doth Protest Too much, Methinks?”
- Other Resources
Lady: the term “Lady” is used to refer to the Player Queen in Hamlet’s play.Doth: the third-person singular version of “do.” It is archaicand uncommonly used today.Protest: archaically used to mean “insist.” Today used to mean argue or disapprove. In this case, the Player Queen is protesting or arguing too much.Thinks: the third personpresent version of “think.” It is used archaically when the Queen uses it to express what she thinks about the play.The phrase “the lady doth protest too much, methinks” was used by Shakespeare in Hamlet. The term suggests that the “lady” the Queen is referring to is arguing too heavily for one thing. She’s so emotional in her assertionsthat the Queen can’t help but think that this is evidence of the fact that she is actually going to do the opposite. It’s a way...
This line is spoken by Queen Gertrude in Hamlet. It appears in line 254 in ActIII, Scene 2. During this act, the Queen, King (who is Hamlet’s uncle and who murdered Hamlet’s father), is watching a play that Hamlet created in order to prove that his uncle murdered his father, the former King of Denmark. The Queen uses this line in response to an ins...
Shakespeare used this phrase as a way of suggesting, without directly stating, something about the Player Queen in Hamlet. When Queen Gertrude uses these words, she’s speaking from experience. She knows that after her own husband died, it made more sense to get remarried to the new king, her husband’s brother than it did to stay single. Her prospec...
Read: Hamlet by William ShakespeareWatch: Hamlet SummaryRead: William ShakespeareNov 29, 2017 · The Lady Doth Protest is the seventh episode of Season 4 of Empire, and the 55th episode overall. It first aired on November 29, 2017. After dealing with the aftermath of Hakeem and Anika's custody battle, Empire's 20-for-20 production is in jeopardy, when Portia and Calvin go on strike when...
- November 29, 2017
- 5.05 Million
- Karen Gaviola
- 3 min
Meaning of The Lady Doth Protest Too Much. By “protest,” the queen does not mean denial or objection. During Shakespeare’s time, the meaning of word was to “declare solemnly,” or to “vow.”.
Queen: The lady doth protest too much, methinks. One of the more interesting quotes by Shakespeare: it's almost always misquoted as "Methinks the lady doth protest too much,"...
