Question

Read the excerpt from Act III of Hamlet.

Rosencrantz:The cease of majesty
Dies not alone, but, like a gulf doth draw
What’s near it with it; it is a massy wheel,
Fix’d on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis’d and adjoin’d; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

Which statement best explains how the excerpt exemplifies Elizabethan drama?

The lives of saints are celebrated.
Political power is discussed.
Rosencrantz tells a Biblical story.
Rosencrantz recalls the details of his life.

Answer 1

Political power is discussed.

Rosencrantz is describing how the fall of a monarch drags down all who depend on the crown — a comment on the centrality and consequences of royal power in Elizabethan drama.