<P> The monologue, spoken in the play by Prince Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II, Scene 2, follows in its entirety . Rather than appearing in blank verse, the typical mode of composition of Shakespeare's plays, the speech appears in straight prose: </P> <P> I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the King and queene: moult no feather . I have of late, (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition; that this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'er hanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeareth no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours . What a piece of work is 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 . And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither; though by your smiling you seem to say so . </P> <P> Hamlet is saying that although humans may appear to think and act "nobly" they are essentially "dust". Hamlet is expressing his melancholy to his old friends over the difference between the best that men aspire to be, and how they actually behave; the great divide that depresses him . </P> <P> The speech was fully omitted from Nicholas Ling's 1603 First Quarto, which reads simply: </P>

What a piece of work is man in action how like an angel