The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.
Commentary
Commentary
Hope is often quiet, but it does real work. It keeps the soul from consenting too early to ruin.
Shakespeare does not portray hope as denial. He treats it more like medicine, something small and sustaining that helps a person stay alive inside difficulty.
The line survives because it gives hope a sober dignity. It is not decoration for hard times, but one of the things that carries people through them.
Commentary
Commentary