Heartfelt Heartbreak

“What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals…”

BUT  they don’t say the monologue’s final line–

“and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? No, man delights not me.”

They’ve taken the quote completely out of context. In Hamlet’s full monologue— everything after and before the quote they use–  he’s describing how the world is hollow. How its wonder is an illusion. This isn’t a monologue about the beauty of the world, it’s a monologue about how that beauty is false, because all the world is only dust. The “quintessence of dust,” the most beautiful possible dust, but only dust.