The play’s the thing
E494607
"The play’s the thing" is a famous line from William Shakespeare’s tragedy *Hamlet*, in which the prince declares his plan to use a staged performance to expose King Claudius’s guilt.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The play’s the thing canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5109890 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The play’s the thing Context triple: [Hamlet, notableQuotation, The play’s the thing]
-
A.
The Play
The Play is the famous last-second kickoff return by the California Golden Bears against Stanford in 1982, featuring multiple laterals and a collision with the Stanford band, and is considered one of the most iconic and chaotic plays in college football history.
-
B.
To Be or Not to Be
"To Be or Not to Be" is a 1942 satirical comedy film about a Polish theater troupe outwitting the Nazis, regarded as one of Ernst Lubitsch’s greatest works.
-
C.
Til the Casket Drops
Til the Casket Drops is the third and final studio album by hip-hop duo Clipse, known for its gritty lyricism and Neptunes-heavy production.
-
D.
Dramatis Personae
Dramatis Personae is a collection of dramatic monologue poems by Robert Browning that helped solidify his reputation as a major Victorian poet.
-
E.
The Nurse
The Nurse is a minor supporting character in Tennessee Williams' play "A Streetcar Named Desire," serving in a medical capacity during key dramatic moments.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The play’s the thing Target entity description: "The play’s the thing" is a famous line from William Shakespeare’s tragedy *Hamlet*, in which the prince declares his plan to use a staged performance to expose King Claudius’s guilt.
-
A.
The Play
The Play is the famous last-second kickoff return by the California Golden Bears against Stanford in 1982, featuring multiple laterals and a collision with the Stanford band, and is considered one of the most iconic and chaotic plays in college football history.
-
B.
To Be or Not to Be
"To Be or Not to Be" is a 1942 satirical comedy film about a Polish theater troupe outwitting the Nazis, regarded as one of Ernst Lubitsch’s greatest works.
-
C.
Til the Casket Drops
Til the Casket Drops is the third and final studio album by hip-hop duo Clipse, known for its gritty lyricism and Neptunes-heavy production.
-
D.
Dramatis Personae
Dramatis Personae is a collection of dramatic monologue poems by Robert Browning that helped solidify his reputation as a major Victorian poet.
-
E.
The Nurse
The Nurse is a minor supporting character in Tennessee Williams' play "A Streetcar Named Desire," serving in a medical capacity during key dramatic moments.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (32)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
literary line
ⓘ
quotation ⓘ |
| addressesCharacter | King Claudius (indirectly) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| appearsInAct | Act 2 NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| appearsInScene | Scene 2 ⓘ |
| associatedWork | The Mousetrap NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| creator | William Shakespeare NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| dramaticContext | Hamlet planning to confirm the Ghost’s accusation ⓘ |
| dramaticDevice | play within a play ⓘ |
| dramaticFunction | to reveal King Claudius’s guilt ⓘ |
| firstPerformanceApproximateYear | circa 1600 ⓘ |
| fullLine | The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king. ⓘ |
| genreOfSourceWork | tragedy ⓘ |
| hasFamousStatus | yes ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryPeriod | Elizabethan drama NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| meter | blank verse (largely iambic pentameter) ⓘ |
| oftenQuotedIn |
literary studies
ⓘ
popular culture ⓘ theatre criticism ⓘ |
| partOf | Hamlet NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| playTitleMentioned | The Murder of Gonzago NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| quotationFrom | Hamlet, Prince of Denmark NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| quotationStatus | proverbial expression about theatre’s revelatory power ⓘ |
| refersTo | a staged performance ⓘ |
| sourceWorkAuthorNationality | English ⓘ |
| spokenByCharacter | Prince Hamlet NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| theme |
appearance versus reality
ⓘ
guilt and conscience ⓘ theatre as a mirror of truth ⓘ |
| usedByCharacterTo | test the king’s reaction ⓘ |
| workType | dramatic line ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The play’s the thing Description of subject: "The play’s the thing" is a famous line from William Shakespeare’s tragedy *Hamlet*, in which the prince declares his plan to use a staged performance to expose King Claudius’s guilt.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.