Note to Hamlet, 4.7.122-123: "a spendthrift sigh, / That hurts by easing"


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Hamlet,
Act 4, Scene 7, lines 122-123
In Shakespeare's time it was thought that every sigh drew a little blood from the heart; therefore a sigh is a spendthrift—one who spends money wastefully—in the sense that it gives a bit of immediate comfort at the cost of life-long injury.