All 3 Uses of
contract
in
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
- 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 hath discretion fought with nature That we with wisest sorrow think on him, Together with remembrance of ourselves.†
Scene 1.2
- Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty; Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And sets a blister there; makes marriage-vows As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul, and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow; Yea, this solidity and compound mass, With tristful visage, as against the doom, Is thought-sick at the act.†
Scene 3.4 *
- ] In youth when I did love, did love, Methought it was very sweet; To contract, O, the time for, ah, my behove, O, methought there was nothing meet.†
Scene 5.1 *
Definitions:
-
(contract as in: the metal contracted) when something gets shorter or smaller
-
(contract as in: legal contract) an agreement - typically written and enforceable by law