"O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann’d,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i’ the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
‘Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver’d and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon’t! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim’d their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I’ll observe his looks;
I’ll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I’ll have grounds
More relative than this: the play ‘s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king."
This soliloquy is the beginning of Hamlet's master plan to condemn Claudius for his involvement in his father's death. This particular piece is spoken right after Hamlet meets with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and welcomes a troupe of actors to Elsinore. Hamlet questions one of the actor's emotion when portraying grief and equates it to his own experience. He pokes fun at the insincerity of it, but then he chastises himself for being a coward - for being given the duty to avenge his father's death, but not being able to follow through with it. This is one of many examples of the conflictions that is within Hamlet as the play goes on. He is caught between two or more sides in every situation, condemning himself or praising his motives. I think that this is a perfect example of how grief over his father has changed him and changed how he views life, and humanity as a whole. His view of both is distorted and drastically different than before the death of his father.
This soliloquy is also the beginnings of what will be Hamlet's plan to avenge his father's death. By putting on a play, as he describes in the last few lines, it will (hopefully) catch Claudius's guilt and allow Hamlet to confirm that it was indeed, his uncle's doing (in killing King Hamlet). It is an especially interesting that he decides to use this plan to fulfill his duty as it does show a bit of cowardice on his part. He could have very well gone up to Claudius and simply take up the matter like that, but he decides to be, in a way, manipulative, and catch him while he's most vulnerable. This definitely is a hint at Hamlet's true character, and the conflictions that define him.
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