Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,

Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.

Ophelia tells her brother not to be hypocritical like pastors who speak of the path
to heaven, while they themselves do not take their own advice. This demonstrates
the banter typical of a loving brother-sister relationship, and explains his grief later
when she goes mad and eventually drowns after their fathers death.

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;

And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged.

Hamlet sees Claudius, by himself, and wants to kill him, but changes his mind
when he realizes Claudius is praying. He fears King Claudius will go to heaven if
killed then, and that is not the revenge he planned. Hamlets indecisiveness is
illustrated here, as pages before he was ready to drink hot blood. It also highlights
the recurring theme of religion in the play.

To what base uses we may return, Horatio!

Why may not imagination trace the noble dust
of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

Contemplating death yet again, Hamlet asks Horatio what uses our bodies might
employ once we die. He suggests that Alexander the Great's dust might be put to
no better use than stopping up the opening in a barrel or cask of liquid. This
reasserts Hamlets cynical outlook and his fascination with death, and his
understanding that even emperors and royalty will all inevitably die, just like
Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and his own fatherthe late King Hamlet.

I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers

Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.

 The king has just ordered that Hamlet and Laertes be separated and removed
from Ophelia's grave, yet Hamlet continues to compete with Laertes with his words,
contending that he loved Ophelia better than "forty thousand brothers." This
aggravates Laertes, who loved his sister dearly and has heard about how Hamlet
spurned her and killed their father. It also confirms that Hamlets earlier dismissal of
Ophelia was not representative of his true feelings, but rather an example of
feigned madness.

This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,

What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?

Fortinbras is understandably surprised when he sees the corpses, which number

more than one generally expects to find upon entering a castle of royalty. He asks
death itself what feast he is planning in his "eternal cell" that he has bloodily
murdered so much royalty at once. His metaphor brings things full circle from
Hamlets many musings about death, especially the thought about how all greats
someday die.