Explain Hamlet's feelings of guilt and self - loathing after he hears the actor recite the Hecuba speech in Act II,II.
Hamlet hears the actor's speech about Hecuba. The actor cries over the story, over the fictional Hecuba who weeps for her murdered husband. Hamlet chastises himself for his own lack of action over what really happened to his father. He calls himself a coward.
"What is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he would weep for her? Just imagine what he would do if he had the cause for feeling that I do."
"Am I a coward?
Who calls me “villain”? Breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? Gives me the lie i' th' throat.... I should take it, for it cannot beBut I am pigeon-livered and lack gall."
