The most memorable line in Hamlet is "To be, or not to be, that is the question" (Act III, scene 1). In this soliloquy, what holds him back is the fear of what may lie on the other side: "To die, to sleep; / To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come [...] must give us pause." The soliloquy nears its end with the idea that thought paralyzes action: "thus conscience does make cowards of us all."
Other lines mark the play. "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy" (Act V, scene 1), said with the court jester's skull in his hand. "There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow [...] The readiness is all" (Act V, scene 2), in which Hamlet already accepts whatever comes. And his last words, "The rest is silence" (Act V, scene 2). "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" is one of the most quoted lines in the play, but it is not Hamlet's: it is said by the sentinel Marcellus, in Act I, scene 4.
As for the metaphor, there is no single official one, and readers disagree about which one sums up the play. The most cited is that of rot. Besides Marcellus's line, Hamlet himself, alone in Act I, scene 2, calls the world "an unweeded garden / That grows to seed," a garden not yet weeded that goes to seed, overrun by what is rank and coarse. The image returns in the poison poured into the ear of the old king, who was sleeping in an orchard.
Another important image is that of the mirror. In Act III, scene 2, Hamlet tells the actors that the purpose of acting has always been "to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature." It is the idea behind the trap he sets, the play within the play that forces King Claudius to reveal himself. The contrast between appearance and reality is, moreover, one of the themes that Wikipedia highlights in the play.
On Clavis: Hamlet.
Sources
- Folger Shakespeare Library: Hamlet, Ato III, cena 1 (texto integral)
- Folger Shakespeare Library: Hamlet, Ato I, cena 4 (texto integral)
- Folger Shakespeare Library: Hamlet, Ato I, cena 2 (texto integral)
- Folger Shakespeare Library: Hamlet, Ato III, cena 2 (texto integral)
- Folger Shakespeare Library: Hamlet, Ato V, cena 1 (texto integral)
- Folger Shakespeare Library: Hamlet, Ato V, cena 2 (texto integral)
- Wikipedia (inglês): Hamlet