“Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all” (III, I, 91)

In scene 1 of act III, after Guildenstern and Rosencrantz return without any new information about Hamlet’s madness, the King and Polonius decide to throw Ophelia at him so as to know if love for her is the actual cause for his changed state of mind. Before Hamlet sees Ophelia, he contemplates suicide for the second time, but once more he is stopped by his moral core, but also by his fear of the afterlife.

In this quote, Hamlet expresses that what he has seen, glimpsed, of his father’s afterlife has made him a coward, scared him away from following his desire of killing himself. Thus, not only does he still know that he would be sinning were he to kill himself, which was originally what stopped him, he is no longer governed by morals and principles, but by fear. His new knowledge has made him, from a righteous man, into a coward. Thus, he is forced to live on through his suffering.

But fear and cowardice also play a great role in his plan to avenge his father’s murder. Indeed, unlike the young Fortinbras, who immediately prepares to march on Denmark after his father is killed in battle against the now dead king Hamlet, Hamlet makes up plan after plan to make sure his uncle really is his father’s killer, thus postponing the time to act continuously. Indeed, first he pretends to be mad, then he stages a play, etc. 

Though caution may be good when dealing with such a delicate situation, not knowing for sure if the ghost really was his father and not a demon, and so, for a long time, not truly knowing if Claudius really had murdered his father, he seems to goes to excessive lengths and through very indirect ways of finding out. For example, he decides to act mad so as not to be suspected of knowing, yet never does he use this cover to truly and effectively investigate. It will be only at his mother’s death, when she drinks the poisoned drink intended for him, that he will take action and avenge his father’s death by killing Claudius.