What is meant by to take arms against a sea of troubles?

Just as an optimist in the 1930’s would think of life as a bowl of cherries, a pessimist in Elizabethan times would call it a sea of troubles. Instead of meaning ”to confront one’s difficulties energetically,” as most people assume, to take arms against a sea of troubles meant ”to kill yourself.

What does take arms against mean?

: to pick up weapons and become ready to fight They took up arms to defend their city. The rebels are taking up arms against their own government.

What does the line or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them mean?

“To take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them” was about fighting against his enemies and the risk of being killed in battle. If so, by ‘end them’ he would mean killing his enemies.

What does Shakespeare mean by take arms?

By “take arms,” Hamlet seems, in context, to mean committing suicide, and though he does not seem to be contemplating the actual act of killing himself at this point in the play, he is clearly disturbed, and is pondering whether life is worth living.

What does it mean to have an AXE to grind?

phrase. If someone has an axe to grind, they are doing something for selfish reasons. [informal, disapproval] He seems like a decent bloke and I’ve got no axe to grind with him. [ + with]

Why is to be or not to be significant?

The soliloquy is essentially all about life and death: “To be or not to be” means “To live or not to live” (or “To live or to die”). Hamlet discusses how painful and miserable human life is, and how death (specifically suicide) would be preferable, would it not be for the fearful uncertainty of what comes after death.

What does Hamlet mean by a sea of troubles and what does ending them mean?

By a “sea of troubles,” Hamlet means life’s many struggles. Hamlet is weighing the merits of life, which is, he argues, inherently full of travails and evils, against that of death, which would bring an end to these troubles: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer.

What is Hamlet’s soliloquy To be or not to be about?

What is the quote all the world’s a stage?

The most famous speech in As You Like It is the Seven Ages of Man, which begins ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players’ (Act 2, Scene 7).

What is meant by to take arms against a sea of troubles? Just as an optimist in the 1930’s would think of life as a bowl of cherries, a pessimist in Elizabethan times would call it a sea of troubles. Instead of meaning ”to confront one’s difficulties energetically,” as most people assume, to take arms…