# Reading > Who Said That? >  3 famous quotes from Hamlet - and what they really mean

## Ray Eston Smith

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

To be, or not to be: that is the question: 

But what do they really mean?

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CLAUDIUS (1,2,127-134)

No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great CANNON to the CLOUDS shall tell,
And the king's rouse the heavens all bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
[Exeunt all but Hamlet]

HAMLET

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His CANON 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! 

On the surface:
Hamlet seems to be contemplating suicide.

Dig deeper:
Claudius (Cloud-ius) had just said that he would fire his CANNON to the CLOUDS.

Hamlet already suspected Claudius of murdering his father. Later when he heard it from the Ghost, he said, "O my prophetic soul!" (1,5,46). If you knew somebody had murdered your father, would you wish for your own death, or for the death of the murderer? If Claudius dissolved into an actual cloud, when he fired his cannon to the clouds he would be committing self-slaughter.

Please see
http://www.thyorisons.com/#Cloud_Cannon_Cup - The Cloud, the Cannon, and in the Cup a Union

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HAMLET (1,5,185-186)

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are DREAMT of in your philosophy.

On the surface:
Hamlet seems to be telling Horatio that the Ghost exists even though ghosts are not a part of Horatio's rational philosophy.

Dig deeper:

HAMLET (2, 2, 268-271)

O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
have BAD DREAMS 

GUILDENSTERN

Which DREAMS indeed are AMBITION. 

HAMLET (5,2,88-94)

. . . Dost know this water-fly? 

HORATIO

No, my good lord. 

HAMLET

THY STATE IS THE MORE GRACIOUS; for 'tis a vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king's mess: 'tis a chough; but, as I say, SPACIOUS IN THE POSSESSION OF DIRT. 

With the combination of these lines, Shakespeare is telling us, with dramatic irony, that Horatio's state is "the more gracious" because he lacks ambition to acquire land. THAT'S the thing that is not DREAMT of in Horatio's philosophy - AMBITION.

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HAMLET (3,1,64-76)

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what DREAMS may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: 

On the surface:
Hamlet is contemplating suicide.

Dig deeper:
Hamlet is contemplating the possibly suicidal mission of trying to kill a king. He is questioning his own motives. His father and his uncle had both doomed their souls by killing for land. If Hamlet kills Claudius out of AMBITION to acquire his land, then Hamlet will be damned by his DREAMS of AMBITON.

BERNARDO (1,1,121-124)

I think it be no other but e'en so:
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
THAT was and IS THE QUESTION of these wars. 

"To be or not to be," like the Ghost, "so like the king THAT was and IS THE QUESTION of these wars" - THAT is Hamlet's dilemma.

Please see
http://www.thyorisons.com/#To_be - To Be Or Not To Be
http://www.thyorisons.com/#Nutshell - Hamlet in a Nutshell - Hamlet Is an Anti-War Play

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## Charles Darnay

Overall there is too much construction in your analysis, and you are drawing meaning based on repeated words but not based on the text. Cloud ius? Your point about dreams being ambition and ambition being dangerous is a good one, but this not support you theory of "to be or not to be"

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## c-man

I agree with Charles that there is a leap in the analysis, but I still like the method. It needs more evidence to make it sound, though. I wonder if there is a problem in the temporal distance between when the statement are uttered. Must "that is the question" always refer to the same thing? Can it not refer to multiple things, even in the same play? Or does Shakespeare expect his audience to remember what the question is from two acts earlier and then relate that specifically to a future monologue?

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## seansurfgood

Though the conclusions drawn are utterly incredulous, your inventive reasoning is something to be admired.

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## cafolini

> Though the conclusions drawn are utterly incredulous, your inventive reasoning is something to be admired.


Admiration is the daughter of ignorance. ~ B. Franklin

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