#HamletSolved1

“…for now shall I sleep in the dust, and if thou seek me in the morning, I shall not be found.”

Job 7.21

GNV

In chapter 7, Job complains to God about his suffering. He is very bitterly sad. He speaks of the futility of his life. Depending on the translation, Job says that he “loathes” or “abhors” or “despises” his life. It could be said that he exhibits suicidal-like despair.

By comparing Hamlet to Job, at Job’s lowest point, Shakespeare is giving us a sense of just how desperately sad Hamlet is. Also, from this very early scene, there is a suggestion that Hamlet is even suicidal.

What is quite fascinating is the fact that in chapter 7 verse 6, Job says: “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they are spent without hope.”

A weaver’s shuttle is a device that passes thread through other threads, in order to weave fabric. It moves very quickly between threads, and therefore is being used to describe how fleetingly fast life is.

Later in the play—in his most famous speech, “To be, or not to be”—Hamlet says "shuffle off this mortal coil” to describe dying.

It has been suggested that the word “shuffle” is a misprint, and that the word is actually “shuttle”. This would mean that Hamlet is saying that dying is like having the woven threads of life unwoven.

If Shakespeare meant to use the word “shuttle” then it would be consistent with how he presents Hamlet here in Act 1 Scene 2—as a young man who is as sad and as suicidal as Job was.