“Hamlet’s First Soliloquy” Hamlet. O! that this too solid flesh would melt, Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world. Fie on’t! Ah fie! ‘tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this! But two months …showed first 75 words of 1670 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1670 total…s worldview has been based. Hamlet has been defeated both by his family and by religion. The only way of escaping (suicide) being impossible, he is left at sea. This soliloquy sets the pattern of Hamlet’s behavior throughout the tragedy and helps the reader become familiar not only with Hamlet’s mind and manner of procedure, but also with the other character and the major conflict that the noble prince will have to confront.