How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world! / Fie on’t! Oh fie! ’tis an unweeded garden / That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature / Possess it merely.
Act I, Scene 2 · Hamlet
Context
Still in his first soliloquy, Hamlet expresses his disgust with the world, comparing it to an overgrown, neglected garden.
Analysis
The four adjectives—'weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable'—pile up without conjunctions, each word landing like a separate thud of exhaustion. The asyndeton (missing 'and's) makes the list feel both heavier and more complete, as if Hamlet is cataloging every shade of emptiness he can name. The garden metaphor that follows transforms abstract disgust into physical rot—'rank and gross' things you could smell and see.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Hamlet's depression is not just emotional but perceptual—the world itself appears decayed to him, and the garden metaphor suggests that corruption is now the natural order, not an aberration.