The soliloquy occurs immediately after the ghost has exited. It thus begins with wild exclamations. Hamlet is baffled and uncertain even of where the ghost came from.
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell?
He then seems to feel either that the immediate conviction that the had is slipping away or that it is in his nature for this to occur
O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
He tackles this worry with hyperbolic rhetoric. Almost as if he is attempting to reassure himself.
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
These attempts are then instantly, hopelessly, negated by the next line of speech. He is instantly distracted from remembering his father’s ghost and, far from thinking of only his commands, becomes infuriated at his mother for re-marrying so hastily,
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark:
Writing
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
Hamlet then, having lost all sense of his immediate conviction, resorts to viewing revenge as purely a matter of duty
It is 'Adieu, adieu! remember me.'
I have sworn 't.
This soliloquy might be distinguished from most others in that it weaves very little information into itself. It is not a device by which the plot might be furthered. Instead, it is purely character forming. It might even be viewed as a microcosm of Hamlet’s emotional movements throughout the entire work.
That is to say that his procrastination is born largely out of his habit of thinking very abstractly on matters where what seems more natural or what seems required is a feeling of conviction. This is what leads him away from a promise to think only of his father to his frustration over the ability man has to be sycophantic. Moreover, his claim that he will forget “all pressures past”, is proved empty a mere five lines later when he returns to his complaints of his mother’s early marriage that were present in previous soliloquies. The time in which he will remain fused with the excitement of a moment is shown to be brief.
This is indicative of the Hamlet to come and essential to understanding his most pivotal actions. For example, often his killing of Polonius is central to any theories on Hamlet. But it is always important to remember that, immediately after an incident that inspires excitement or passion or conviction he will display those emotions, if only briefly, as here with his swearing to think of only his father. The killing of Polonius takes place after the success of his play plan, when he is in a state of great excitement. This explains how he can kill seemingly on a whim and yet delay his attack on Claudius for so long. It is the waxing and waning, of his conviction and abstract reasoning respectively that produces a character that can be passionate but withdrawn, impulsive yet considered and perhaps even seem sane and then later mad within the same play. The progression in this soliloquy from conviction to distraction in thought to a feeling of burden that implies procrastination is the very essence of his character.