O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
– William Shakespeare
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2. In Hamlet’s first soliloquy we learn that, following the death of his father and his mother’s hasty remarriage to his father’s brother, Hamlet believes his life is pointless. He wishes that God had not made suicide a sin. Even before he hears the shocking revelations about the manner of his father’s death, Hamlet is clearly deeply troubled. Note the use of a metaphor comparing Hamlet’s flesh to melting ice, indicating how depressed he feels.