"...I do not know why yet I live to say `This thing's to do,' sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means to do `t. Examples gross as earth exhort me: witness this army of such mass and charge, led be a delicate and tender prince...How stand I, then, that have a father killed, a mother stained, excitements of my reason and my blood, and let all sleep, while to my shame I see the imminent death of twenty thousand men that for a nd trick of fame go to their graves like beds...O from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!"

This passage is particularly important to the development of Hamlet's character. Here we see Hamlet comparing himself and his task of avenging his father's death with the fact that thousands of men will die, and all for...