What a piece of work is a man

"What a piece of work is a man!" is a phrase within a monologue by Prince Hamlet in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Hamlet is reflecting, at first admiringly, and then despairingly, on the human condition.

The speech
The monologue, spoken in the play by Prince Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II, Scene 2, follows in its entirety. Rather than appearing in blank verse, the typical mode of composition of Shakespeare's plays, the speech appears in straight prose:

"I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the King and queene: moult no feather. I have of late, (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition; that this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile  promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'er hanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeareth no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving  how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the  world, The paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is  this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither; though by your smiling you seem to say so."

Differences between texts
The speech was fully omitted from Nicholas Ling's 1603 First Quarto, which reads simply:

"Yes faith, this great world you see contents me not, No nor the spangled heauens, nor earth, nor sea, No nor Man that is so glorious a creature, Contents not me, no nor woman too, though you laugh."

This version has been argued to have been a bad quarto, a tourbook copy, or an initial draft. By the 1604 Second Quarto, the speech is essentially present but punctuated differently:

"What piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god!"

Then, by the 1623 First Folio, it appeared as:

"What a piece of worke is a man! how Noble in Reason? how infinite in faculty? in forme and mouing how expresse and admirable? in Action, how like an Angel? in apprehension, how like a God? ..."

J. Dover Wilson, in his notes in the New Shakespeare edition, observed that the Folio text "involves two grave difficulties", namely that according to Elizabethan thought angels could apprehend but not act, making "in action how like an angel" nonsensical, and that "express" (which as an adjective means "direct and purposive") makes sense applied to "action", but goes very awkwardly with "form and moving".

These difficulties are remedied if we read it thus:

"What a piece of worke is a man! how Noble in Reason? how infinite in faculty, in forme, and mouing how expresse and admirable in Action, how like an Angel in apprehension, how like a God?"