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Similes
Act 4, Scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Thinking too Precisely:
Hamlet’s last soliloquy takes place in Act 4, Scene 4. Like his previous moments of pause, Hamlet uses the privacy of an empty stage to reflect on his behavior. By this point in the play, he has begun to understand a frustrating pattern in his behavior: he is paralyzed by his fear of making a decision, and he agonizes over what to do until any action seems impossible. In his soliloquy in Act 4, Scene 4, he addresses this pattern directly. He says:
Now whether it be Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th’ event
(A thought which, quartered, 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,"
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