In his first soliloquy of Shakespeare's play, "Hamlet," the Prince of Denmark expresses his disillusionment with man:
O, that this too too sallied flesh would melt,/Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,/Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/His canon 'gainst self-slaughter. O God, God,/How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/Seem to me all the uses of this world!(I,ii,129-134)
Depressed by the news that his father has been murdered, Hamlet would like to leave this world himself, but he knows iit is a sin to commit suicide. Also depressed in his disillusionment regarding his mother, Hamlet expresses his disgust for her "wicked speed" to "incestuous sheets": "Frailty thy name is woman" (I,ii,146). The reality of her being married to Claudius causes Hamlet to feel that the world is an "unweeded garden/That grows to seed" (I,ii,135-136) This last image continues Hamlet's wish that he, too, could go "to seed." For, he realizes that the situation
cannot come to good./But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue. (I,ii,156-157).
Clearly, this first soliloquy of Hamlet reveals his chagrin,self-reproach, despair, and woe as the death of his father, the king of Denmark, is the death of Hamlet's life as he has known it.
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