“When we have shuffled off this mortal coil”
Hamlet likens ending life to the feeling of being freed of chains that have been around you. This clearly represents Hamlet’s feelings. Hamlet feels that he is being weighed down by something, and wonders if death would rid him of this feeling. The language device used is a metaphor that is useful for drawing parallels between different feelings. Hamlet uses this as another way to express his dilemma of life or death, brought on by his father’s death and Ophelia’s apparent lack of love for him.
“Whose phrase of sorrow conjures the wand’ring stars and makes them stand”
Hamlet is expressing his love for Ophelia and his lust for her death. He describes the stars (the planets) as standing up in respect for Ophelia’s death, as she is that important for him. This is another metaphor used by Hamlet that his obsession with death. Death is littered in Hamlet’s life. Shakespeare typically uses the idea of fate to make death prominent in his plays.
This is similar to the “shuffle off this mortal coil” quote because it gives death respect, releases the feeling that the “calamity of so long life” will always end in death, death will always win. This is a sense of real hopelessness, that Hamlet demonstrates by surviving through life or “opposing them