Does John Donne trust on womankind?

Does John Donne trust on womankind?

John Donne, a man of romantic nature. He spent his life with several rich women and prostitutes in London. Perhaps he had gone through experiences of distrust. Therefore, he found himself sceptical towards beautiful women. He had shown his cynical attitude through his song “Go and Catch a Falling Star’. His poem came to in light 1597 In 'Songs and Sonnets', notably, he was unmarried at that time. In this poem, he shows his great distrust towards women. To favour his arguments he includes many examples of improbable tasks, which no one can do completely.

GO, AND CATCH A FALLING STAR

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the devil's foot,

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy's stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,

Till age snow white hairs on thee,

Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear,

No where

Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,

Such a pilgrimage were sweet;

Yet do not, I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet;

Though she were true, when you met her,

And last, till you write your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Preface

In the poem, the poet expresses his great distrust towards womankind through a list of exaggerated tasks such as to catch a falling star, to beget a child on the mandrake root, or to tell of where all the past years have gone, to tear the Devil’s foot, or how to hear the mermaid songs.

Subject Matter

This famous song is an example of metaphysical poetry that came out in the collection named ‘Songs and Sonnets’. The poem states the idea of distrust in women.

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the devil's foot,

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy's stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

Stanza 1

In this stanza, the poet suggests doing some tasks that are completely impossible such as to go and catch a falling star. Moreover, get a child out of the mandrake roots. Then he asks to let him know if someone can where all past years have gone. The poet asks if anyone exists who can tear devil’s foot. Here, the poet argues that if someone can then teach him how to listen to the mermaids' song. the poet says to tell him how anyone can get rid of envy and what type of environment and circumstances make a man more honest and pure.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,

Till age snow white hairs on thee,

Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear,

No where

Lives a woman true, and fair.

Stanza 2 

In the second stanza, the poet asks his friend by exaggerating his ideas that if someone is born with magical powers whose eyes can see through everything and everywhere or anyone, who can ride for a long-distance of ten thousand days and nights do this until he becomes old and when he returns from the search expedition tell him whatever he hs seen through this journey. By the word strange, the poet means if anyone has seen the trustworthy and beautiful woman anywhere. The poet completely distrusts women so he says to swear if anyone claims that he has met a beautiful and trustworthy woman Because as he thinks that there is no place in this world where live a beautiful and trustworthy woman.

If thou find'st one, let me know,

Such a pilgrimage were sweet;

Yet do not, I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet;

Though she were true, when you met her,

And last, till you write your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Stanza 3        

The poet further demanded if you have found even a single trustworthy and beautiful lady let him know about her place because where she lives the place must be a pilgrimage and the poet wishes to visit the place. The poet wishes to meet such a woman. Immediately, the poet forbids his friend, please do not tell him about her, because as he thinks, while he met her she might be pure and true but until he writes a letter to the poet, she may turn into an impure woman.

Related Questions

• What is metaphysical poetry? Discuss John Donne is a metaphysical poet based on your reading of his poems.

• Define hyperbole Example of the hyperbole from the poem. What are the impossible tasks mentioned in the poem?

• The images of Donne are usually condemned because they are far-fetched would you agree with this view discuss with the references of the poem?

 

Tennyson as a representative Victorian Poet.

Alfred Lord Tennyson was a true representative of The Victorian Age

Alfred Lord Tennyson was a true representative of The Victorian Age, the Age of reformation. England named this age after the name of Queen Victoria. England witnessed growth science and industry during this period. The reforms in this period not only affected the social, political but also arts. He was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire in England in 1809. Changes that occurred during this age affected greatly the works by Tennyson. He selected the subjects from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic lives to the observations from nature. John Keats and other romantic poets greatly inspired his works. He was the master of rhythm. We have seen In ‘Break, Break, Break’ he emphasized the relentless sadness of the subject matter. He turned on the musical quality of words to make it sensitive. The poet lived in a period of scientific advancement and we can see conflict between scientific theories and religious faith. Tennyson represented the Victorian poetry and he preferred dramatic monologue as a mode of expression.

Works:

• Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832)
• St. Simeon Stylites (1833)
• From Poems (1842):
• The Two Voices (1834)
• "Ulysses" (1833)
• From The Princess; A Medley (1847)
• In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849)
• Ring Out, Wild Bells (1850)
• The Eagle (1851)
• From Maud; A Monodrama (1855/1856)
• The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854)
• From Enoch Arden and Other Poems (1862/1864)
• Flower in the crannied wall (1869)
• The Window – Song cycle with Arthur Sullivan (1871)
• Harold (1876)
• Idylls of the King (composed 1833–1874)
• Becket (1884)
• Locksley Hall Sixty Years after (1886)
• Crossing the Bar (1889)
• The Foresters – a play with incidental music by Arthur Sullivan (1891)

Break Break Break contains Tennyson's feelings feelings of nostalgia.

Break, Break, Break

Break Break Break describes feelings of loss. The poem has a strong biographical connection with Alfred Lord Tennyson's life. The poem contains his feelings of melancholy along with his feelings of nostalgia. The poet wrote Break, Break, Break during early 1835, and published in, 1842. This is an elegy that describes the poet’s feelings of loss after his friend, Arthur Hallam died. The poem is extremely simple in form and color.

SUMMARY

Tennyson’s loss is both personal and profound. There is a cyclone of pain rising in the heart of the poet, a storm similar to that of the sea. WhereasThe angler’s boy and the sailor lads are merry. Nevertheless, the poet stands grief-stricken, as the memories of the past gather in his mind.

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.

In the first stanza, the poet says that the torment of his heart as the death of his friend is tremendous. There is a struggle like the struggle of the sea waves on the stormy shores. The question before him is how he can express adequately the thoughts, which occur in his mind.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!

O, well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

In the second stanza, the poet says that others' lives are full of joy as for the angler’s son and daughter who are laughing and shouting merrily. The poet, on the other hand, is entirely in a melancholic mood. He is restless and grief-stricken at the death of his friend. The poet admires the innocent joy of these youngsters but he is sorry because he cannot share it. The lad of the sailor is also happy and sings in his boat face to face with the magnificence of the sea. However, such joy the poet cannot enjoy.

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still!

In the third stanza, the poet says that the majestic ships are reaching their destinations under the hill. The poet however has no definite plan for his life and he misses his friend Hallam whose voice and touch was so soft and tender. The grief of the poet is terribly intense. The poet mingled the beauty of sound and the beauty of sense. They are nothing but grief personified and they make grief eternal.

Break, break, break

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

In the last stanza, the poet asks the waves to strike against the seashore and thus repeat this joyful experience, but the poet cannot recall the experience, which he enjoyed earlier in the company of his friend. God had been very kind in blessing him with the tender friendship of Hallam.

How did Shakespeare try to immortalize his Friend W.H.?

Like as the Waves 

In most of the sonnets, Shakespeare referred to his friend a Mr. W.H. though his friend’s Identity is not cleared anywhere that whoever he may be. He might be Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, or Sir Philipp Sydney’s nephew, William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke.

Shakespeare is talking about the same friend W.H. in Like as The Waves. In the sonnet, the poet is saying that his verse in praise of his friend will make him, immortal despite the cruel hands of time. This poem seems inspired by Golding’s translation of Ovid’s 

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

The very first opening line of the sonnet is introduced with the applied figure of speech simile. Where the poet compares the lives with the waves that come out of from the bottom of the sea and end at the shore.

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

In the second line, the poet said in his positive agreement format that the same way our lives within time continue and end. 

Each changing place with that, which goes before,

He says that nothing has a permanent place in this universe a thing comes and another takes its place after some time. 

In sequent toil, all forwards do contend.

A person in his life span works so hard to achieve the things that he desired all his life and he is feeling satisfied.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

The word nativity refers here to the birth when someone bore and become aware of his life.   

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,

A person in his life after birth slowly grows, learns, achieves, and sometimes fails. Sometimes times award him with achievements.

Crooked elipses ’gainst his glory fight,

Time has its own way to perform its duty. The poet says that some bad planets with bad effects can hard and destroy a person‘s life. He has to face various obstacles during his lifetime.

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

A time comes in everyone’s life when he feels confused himself. Nobody can understand the ways of life and the way time plays a role in our lives.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

It was time itself that gave us youth and now the time is taking it back. Time is always a continuous process that never stops and never ends.

And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,

At a time the beauty of youth goes away and we become old and ugly with wrinkle everywhere on face same like earth looks when we delve it with plow. 

Rhyme Scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg 

The contribution of female poets of Romantic Age

Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821) 

English novelist, actor, and playwright, Elizabeth Inchbald was born in a small village called Standing field near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, England in 1753. She was the eighth child of John Simpson, a farmer, and his wife Mary. Inchbald’s father dies early living the family to the care of her mother. Inchbald went to London in 1772 to seek her fortune on the stage. She struggled to find work because of her speech impediment. She married actor Joseph Inchbald in June 1772 and began working seriously as an actor. She made her first dramatic appearance on 4th September 1772, as the character Cordelia opposite her husband‘s King Lear in Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Plays

• Mogul Tale or the Descent of the Balloon (1784)
• Appearance is against them (1785)
• I’ll Tell You What 1785
• The Widow’s Vow 1786

Novels 

• A simple Story (1791)
• Nature and Art (1796)

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

British Feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft was born In Spatial fields, London in 1759. Her Father Edward John Wollstonecraft was a tyrannical husband, who bullied his wife, Elizabeth Dixon, into a state of servitude. A weaver by profession, her father left his work, mismanaged his share of family inheritance, and engaged in futile attempts to become a gentleperson. After her mother’s death, Wollstonecraft left home in search of her own livelihood.

Works

• Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787)
• Original Stories from Real Life (1788)
• Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)
• Mary A Fiction (1788)

Mary Wollstonecraft‘s Vindication of the rights of women published in 1792 is considered as one of the earliest texts of Western Feminism. It is partly structured as a response to several works on women education and female conduct written by men during the latter half of the 18^th century, among the most significant of these was Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile or On Educations. She states that since childhood, women are taught to believe that they are inferior to men. They are taught to be docile and submissive, Characteristics such as meekness and self–sacrifice are included as feminine virtues, which lead to the subjugation of women.

Mary Hays (1759- 1843)

English novelist and feminist, Mary was born in Southward, Near London. She was born into a Baptist family to John and Elizabeth Hays. She lost her father when she was very young.

Works

• Cursory Remarks on an Enquiry into the expediency and propriety of public worship 1792
• Memoires of Emma Courtney (1792)
• Appeal to Men of Great Britain In Behalf Of Women (1796)

Fanny Burney

English novelist and diarist Fanny was born as Frances Burney in King’s: Lynn, Norfolk, England in 1752. She was the daughter of Dr. Charles Burney, a musical historian and Estate Sleepe, her mother died, when she was only 9. Her father later married Elizabeth Allen, The wealthy widow of King’s Lynn wine merchant, who proved to be an overbearing stepmother. She was a writer, composing odes, plays, songs, farces, and poems at an early age.

Novels 

• The History of Caroline Evelyn (1767)
• Evelina: Or The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World (1778)
• Cecilia: Or, Memoires of an Heiress (1782)  

Non-fiction

• Brief reflections relative to the French Emigrants Clergy (1793)
• Memoires of Doctor Burney (1832)

Plays 

• The Witlings (1779)
• Edwy and Elgiva, (1790)
• Love and Fashion 1799
• The Woman Hater 1800-1801

Maria Edgeworth 1768 -1849

Anglo –Irish novelist Maria was born in Blackbourtan, Oxford shire, England in 1768. She was the second child of Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Anna Maria. Her father was a writer, scientist, inventor, and educationist, who married four times and had twenty-four children.

Works

• Letters for Literary Ladies (1795)
• Castle Rack-rent (1800)
• Belinda (1801)
• Leonora (1806)
• Patronage (1814)
• Harrington (1817)

Jane Austin 1775 -1817

English novelist was born at St Stevenson Rectory in Hampshire, England in 1775; she was the seventh child of reverend George Austen and Cassandra Leigh.

Works

• Sense and Sensibility (1811)
• Pride and Prejudice (1813)
• Mansfield Park (1814)
• Emma (1815)

 

Edmund Spenser was patronized by-

By whom Edmund Spenser was patronized? 

Edmund Spenser contributed 1568 a number of Visions and Sonnets from (Petrarch and Du Bellay) to an edifying Theatre for Wordings'. Spenser obtained in 1578, through his college friend G. Harvey, a place in Leicester's household, and become acquainted with Sir Philip Sidney. With Sidney, Dyer, and others, formed a literary club styled 'Areopagus'. In 1579 he began the 'Faerie Queene' and published his 'Shepherd's Calendar'. In 1580, he was appointed secretary to Lord Grey De Wilton, then going to Ireland as lord deputy, and acquired Kilcolman Castle in county Cork. Here he settled and occupied himself with literary artwork, writing his elegy ' Astrphel or Sir Philip Sidney and preparing the Faerie Queene for the press, three books of this work being entrusted to the printer on the poet's visit to London in 1589. He returned to Kilcolman and penned ‘Colin Clouts Come Home Againe’ printed 1595. The success of the Faerie Queene led the printer, Ponsonby to issue in 1591 his minor Verses and Juvenilia, in part, rewritten, as ‘Complaints’.

DEATH BE NOT PROUD - A bright example of metaphysical poetry by John Donne.

About

This poem a great example of argument with an abstract form, which is known as personification that is death in this poem. It appeared in the collection “Holly Sonnets”

Text

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

 

Simplified Explanation

In this sonnet, Poet is asking to death a question. In very first line of the poem we get to know that poet has used capital letter for the word “Death” which means death has been personified here as a living person. Therefore, it is now possible to talk with death. So he asks death why does she proud on her. Of course, we find in living word some call her mighty some name her powerful. In addition, it is true that she is inevitable. Nevertheless, poet does not take her as powerful and mighty. Moreover, he says to death if you think that, you have killed so many of us are not killed. Poet says Death that she cannot kill him. Here he refers her as poor and he is demeaning death in this line. Poet compares death to rest and sleep. He thinks death is nothing more than a sleep or a state of rest. He says to Death you are much more pleasure some for people than sleep. When you kill someone there remains only bones and soul reaches some another place as soon as someone dies. This idea of the poet resembles something like that have been described in Hindu philosophy in The Bhagwad Geeta that soul is immortal only body dies. No one living or nonliving can harm soul. Soul delivers immediately acquires a new body. 

Poet again humiliates death. He says you are a slave to fate, kings, and chances. As in real life, we find that death comes through many kinds of excuses sometimes in the form of murder by goons; accident, sometimes and punishment by kings or judiciary, sometimes in face of disease or pandemic in some cases humans intentionally choose death as an excuse of escape from worldly matters by the means of suicide. 

As we have seen in earlier lines poet compares death to sleep or rest. In a life, many persons consume narcotic drugs, wines, and herbs such as opium; Poet says that their effects are more powerful to sleep someone than death. Poet scorns Death why she feels pride on her. 

In concluding couplet poet has said that whenever someone dies he does not die but dies the Death itself. Because soon after the moment we become a soul and soul is immortal. So here, poet says to Death that you die; we do not when you come to us. 

 

This the way Shakespeare recalls his best Friend.

Sonnet 30: When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought

William Shakespeare

Poem Text

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,a

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,

And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight;

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end.

Introduction

This is a sonnet number 30 penned by William Shakespeare. The poem is a remembrance in which the poet is offering like an obituary to his friend named ‘W.H.’ who has recently passed. This is one of the best examples of Shakespearean sonnets. The first three quatrains are arising problems and in the last couplet is giving solution.     

Quatrain 1 - Rhyme Scheme - ABAB

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:

Explanation

When to the sessions this phrase refers the time when the poet remembers his past friend who has gone beyond the reach of time means have died. There also arises the memories of things that have lost somewhere in the past or the things which the poet could not achieve in his life. He feels pain for many things, which he wanted to own but could not due to any reason. Moreover, these old memories waste his time when he wants to pay his time to his dear friend.   

Quatrain 2 - Rhyme Scheme - CDCD

Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,a

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,

And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight;

Explanation

Here in this second quatrain, the poet expresses his grief over the long-lost friends. Unintentionally his eyes wet. He has lost many precious friends in dateless night literally, which means death from which nobody comes back. 

Quatrain 3 - Rhyme Scheme - EFEF

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

Explanation

Then poet feels agony in his heart he grieves like never before over the things he has already grieved. One by one all the stories come into his mind. He felt as if he had never grieved before like this time. 

Couplet - Rhyme Scheme - GG

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end.

 

Explanation:

In this couplet, the poet overcomes his grief when he recalls his dear friend. He thinks that whenever he remembers his friends all his thoughts of the past forgone. According to him, God has consoled him by giving him memories of so loving friends. All the things restored refer that memories of his dear makes him rather bear all the problems. 

Iambic Pentameter

A poetic meter consisting of a line with five feet in each of which the iamb is dominant. Pentameter is a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable.

To Be or Not To Be ; That is the questions

One of the best examples of soliloquies in form of a monologue presented by William Shakespeare in one of his great tragedies named Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1 the lines of the poem uttered by prince Hamlet after the death of his father King Hamlet.

Text To Be, Or Not To Be

To be, or not to Be

In this line, the question rises in Hamlet’s mind that what is he going to do, he should do or not. Here, readers know that he is thinking about committing suicide because he is feeling tormented by the fact that his mother was having an illegitimate extramarital affair with his own uncle. They have murdered his father. His father’s soul comes in his dream and asks him to take his revenge and not to hurt anyway his wife. He finds himself unable to do anything and wants to commit suicide in his madness.  

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

He asks himself that is it fine to suffer in mind and take no action against anything causing trouble to a person. He is trying to analyze that is it morally good to suffer and do nothing.

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

He is talking about the acts of his mother and uncle which by fortune giving him mental problems. 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

In this line, he is arguing an alternative to taking arms against a sea of trouble. He either wants to kill his mother and uncle or him.

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

The poet referred to the Death to here as a long sleep.

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

Can he overcome his troubles with the help of suicide?

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

The pain caused by his mother and uncle surprised him after finding their relation.

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

He believes that all the pain and troubles are only affecting his body. If he kills himself, He can escape from them because the entire problem can be ended with his body.

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

He agrees to die for a long sleep. He thinks it is religiously right to end up and die.

Outrageous: shameful,

Consummation: The act of bringing to completion or fruition

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

Here comes a doubt in his conscience that if there comes a dream may be a nightmare in his sleep because he has already compared his death to sleep. He can get more troubles because unlike sleep we cannot rise from deathbed whether it is tormenting us. Moreover, of course, there is a chance of unforeseen obstacles in the afterlife.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

He knows that nobody knows what dream may come in sleep. We cannot escape from there.

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Right now, he is suffering because his body is heir to problems. 

Must give us pause: there is the respect

He gives a second thought to his plan that he must stop there. He gives examples of the people why they are bearing pains in their daily lives.

That makes calamity of so long life;

Though living a life cause troubles but they are still not killing themselves.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

They tolerate the whips and scorns of time. They continue their lives after all.

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

A person bears the wrong behavior done by kings and bosses. He bears the abuses he gets in his daily actions in family, in society, and in offices. 

The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,

A lover lives a life with a broken heart; an innocent man lives his life even with the delay of law when he cannot get justice at the right time.

The insolence of office and the spurns

An employee tolerates the abuse at his office made by his bosses

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

A man lives his with patience and does actions, which have no importance in his life.

When he himself might his quietus, make

He argues in his mind if it is possible to get rid of the circumstance by killing self then why a person lives a painful life.

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

Why do they live a life it is because just they want to live?

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

Why a person lives a life, which is hard?

Rub an unforeseen obstacle

Contumely: abuse

Spurns: rejections

Fardels: burden

But that the dread of something after death,

Hamlet gets a solution here that there a fear of something after death which forces a person to live a life. Afterlife is an uncertainty nobody knows whether he can do something or not there. 

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

Nobody knows what happens after death. the state after death resembles a country about which we know nothing.

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

It is an immortal universal fact that nobody returns after death. This thing stops him to take any action against life.

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

This is the only thought, which forbids a man to kill himself and rather bear the ills of life.

Than fly to others that we know not of?

He thinks is it right to get into unknown trouble to get rid of renowned problems?

Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all;

This thought makes us cowardly.

And thus the native hue of resolution

There we can see that Hamlet becomes resolute not to take his life.

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

His thoughts banish here.

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard, their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

Moreover, the step he was going to ahead by killing him in the heat of the moment rejects.

Turn awry: Turned or twisted toward one side