RALPH: Hamlet says here that it's thinking about all of this that makes us cowardly, that is, unwilling to die or to take risks that might end up killing us. Risks like trying to kill Claudius.

SARAH: Here's some wonderful word play, Ralph. The "native hue of resolution" means our natural state of determination; but Shakespeare plays on the sense of hue as skin tone. Thought, that is, thinking too much about consequences, is like an illness that changes the color of our healthy complexion with a pale cast, or shade.

RALPH: And then Hamlet plays on the two senses of the word "moment." Enterprises of great moment are projects of great importance, but also projects that have great momentum as if they are being carried around by a river current. But too much thinking about them turns that current in some other direction, and our projects lose their momentum.

SARAH: So then they can no longer be called actions — they "lose the name of action."

RALPH: Well, Sarah, even if Hamlet may have been referring to suicide as one of many ways to die in the lines above, he doesn't seem to be talking about it here - now it seems like he's referring to his own plan to avenge his father's death.

SARAH: I agree, Ralph — and yet, even though Hamlet is clearly thinking about his own situation, he's still generalizing — "conscience does make cowards of us all." As much as this soliloquy lets us in on Hamlet's own personal dilemmas, it also speaks to the broader problems we all face in human experience — and Hamlet seems quite aware of this universal aspect to his thoughts.

RALPH: True enough, Sarah — in fact, we might even say that part of Hamlet's own unique, personal experience — what's happening to him in this play — is precisely what causes him to reflect on these universal questions. His thoughts may apply to everyone, but not everyone has these kinds of thoughts, and not all the time — they arise from a particular state of mind, and a particularly astute mind.