THE CHARACTER OF HAMLET

Have been reading the text and criticisms of Hamlet, off and on, when the mood takes me. It's a task that's been "in progress" for some time (more time that it should've taken). But you can't just pick it up on the tube. Shakespeare calls for a modicum of application and concentration. As with all good things, the best and most worthwhile aims/endeavours require effort. Being much more of a thinker than a doer myself, I sympathise with Hamlet. These are some of my favourite lines (this is certainly from my favourite of the five or so soliloquies).

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'

Utterly fabulous and wonderful.