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Hello, over the past five days I've read through Hamlet twice and seen the 1996 film version. The one quote I cannot understand from the play comes in act IV, scene V where Laertes says to the king, "That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brows
Of my true mother." How do you all interpret this quote?
Thanks.
Laertes is saying that if he doesn't avenge his father's death then there'll be nothing but shame to his and to his mother's and father's honor.
It ties into the dominant theme of filial obligation. Laertes feels that he must take revenge, or else he doesn't deserve to be his father's son. This is set up, along with Fortinbras, as the idea of a good son. Hamlet, of course, is well aware that his father was murdered by his uncle, and yet spends the whole play procrastinating and delaying - an interesting contrast is therefore established.