HAMLET         Confess yourself to heaven,

Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come,

And do not spread the compost on the weeds

To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue,

For in the fatness of these pursy times

Virtue itself of Vice must pardon beg.

Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.          (3.4.147-153)

Hamlet—perhaps above all else—is taking the moral (very) high ground here, in relation to his mother’s remarriage, but he’s also possibly motivated by the fear that she, like his father, could die suddenly, and not in a state of grace—because he considers that her marriage is incestuous, therefore illicit, and therefore adulterous. Confess yourself to heaven, admit you’ve done something wrong; repent what’s past—repent, repent!—avoid what is to come. Don’t do it again! Resist, resist! And do not spread the compost on the weeds to make them ranker. Don’t entertain temptation, avoid even the opportunity to sin again. Don’t put yourself in potentially dangerous situations! Don’t wear that sexy nightdress again! Don’t add fuel to the fire—although Hamlet’s image of the out-of-control garden, choked with weeds, is more primal and more intense. Forgive me this my virtue—look, mum, I’m sorry I’m being such a puritanical prig, sorry not sorry—for in the fatness of these pursy times, when everything seems swollen with corruption, out of control, anything goes, virtue itself of vice must pardon beg. Ironic, though, that you’re the one in the wrong and I’m the one apologising! (Ah, the self-satisfied censoriousness of youth.) Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good, look at me being so prim and proper, courteous even as I offer you advice. (There could be the possibility of Hamlet realising he’s gone too far in his admonishments, mocking his own moralising. Or maybe it’s just easier to cut these last few lines.)