What a piece of work is a man!

Hamlet dangles his antic disposition in front of his boys.

This being one of the most famous of Hamlet's speeches--and one often taken out of the very sarcastic context in which it is meant to be absorbed--I decided to go with the entirety of the monologue to keep it in perspective: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive at Elsinore unexpectedly, and Hamlet immediately figures them out, so he decides to play the ultra emo role he's set up for himself to throw them off the scent of what's really going down.

These two famously indistinguishable flunkies have been summoned to the court by Claudius and Gertrude. They are asked to kindly spy on young Hamlet and report back on the troubled prince's disposition. Starstruck as they are, they agree to this charge and "make love to this employment" as Hamlet puts it. They do this because they are the type of school friend who sends a friend request on Facebook just because they want to increase their friend count and include every single person they ever remembered from middle school and love to point out that "Look, me and the Prince go way back." Imagine if one of those people showed up at your house in the midst of family turmoil. You know your Facebook-troglodytic parents only friended them because they're the only friends they remember you had before college and have no clue that you've actually blocked their updates from your home timeline because their statuses are so soporific and banal you'd rather write whole soliloquies about grass growing than read them and be reminded that you were once inseparable.

Hamlet is insulted by this blatant conspiracy and complete lack of insight into his current social circle. He perhaps wonders if they had asked Horatio at first, and trusts that Horatio turned them down. He knows he has a role to continue playing, so that Claudius does not suspect that Hamlet suspects him of murder. Naturally, he interrogates his old buddies and goes on a non-specific rant about how horrible the world is and laments about the gross, arrogant fallibility of humankind. This way, the boys are no more wise about Hamlet's feigned motivation or his real one. But, methinks there's quite a bit of truth in the cynicism presented for them. Hamlet's disgusted by the state of humanity, or at least the representatives surrounding him, and with very good reason.


Hamlet, Act II, Sc. II
Hamlet: I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, 
and your secrecy to the king and queen 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'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, 
why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. 
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! 
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.