Beauty

Above Hamlet's obvious disturbance, his words are right. Harshly he says it ‘cause he’s hurt, but true:

“Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.”

Beauty is a threat. Very easily women can be victims of it and become whores, as Hamlet suggests. No matter how honest and good this woman is. Beauty is ironic, it should be synonym of goodness, but it is not! This makes it a paradox, self-contradictory. A person that is beautiful inside means that her heart is pure, with good intentions and incapable of evil. But this beauty outside isn’t. Hamlet says that beauty overpowers honesty. It’s more appealing, duuh. So pretty women are sinful! Even though this should not be a generalization, Hamlet is doing so ordering Ophelia to go to a nunnery, and not to sin because her condition leads her to do so. And Hamlet is already accusing Ophelia of sin, mostly because he is upset for the returning of his “remembrances," and to hide this obvious feeling: “I did love you once”. Once, but not anymore. Buhu, the rest of us know the lie, otherwise he would not have cared that she gave him the gifts back, right? Poor Hamlet, cheating himself with his own true feelings.