Hamlet: Coward

I guess by picking Hamlet as the coward, I am choosing convenience because it is so obvious in multiple places in Hamlet where Hamlet can be depicted as a coward. Even though after Act 1, I was ready to read about the dashing things Hamlet was going to do in order to get this revenge, all we got instead was a tiresome, inactive, and thinking Hamlet. Because he spent so much time dwelling on the revenge concept, he couldn't take action even in Act 4! The first instance where I would like to point Hamlet out as a coward is in Act 2 Scene 1. Why? You may be wondering why I would think of this particular scene instead of a different one. The reason is because the very fact that Hamlet does not start of Act 2 signifies that he will not take action. If he were to have the passion and fervor to seek out revenge, as the ghost promised him to, he should have appeared in the beginning of Act 2. However, all we get is how Hamlet is 'acting' and 'seeming' mad. Of course, we can attribute this seemingness as a clever and witty plot of Hamlet's. But because we have read until Act 4, we know how Hamlet goes in circles with his witty words. Therefore, Polonius and Ophelia starting out Act 2 foreshadowed Hamlet's cowardliness.The long soliloquy he gives in Act 2 Scene 2, is full of him pointing out his flaws of unmanliness. He is very blunt about it saying, ""Am I a coward?" and then "Who... Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?" The rest of the soliloquy is full of his inactivity and how he is trapped under his own flaw. Of course, we take pity on Hamlet for suffering under this great pressure given by a ghost where he has to kill Claudius (although a different hero may have killed Claudius just because of the fact that he married Gertrude and stole the hero's right to throne). However, the frustration within me is not covered by the pity for Hamlet. If Hamlet is so clever and intellectual enough to come up with such mindblowing comebacks to Polonius, shouldn't he also have the brains for a better plot for revenge? Just because he puts on a play to confirm of Claudius, he should have known that he couldn't just go up to Claudius and be like 'I saw your face expression change. You are guilty of murdering my father!' and kill him. I mean come on! Hamlet should have either just killed him or framed the king of a heinous crime of some sort. Therefore, not only is Hamlet a coward, he is a very frustrating coward to me and to himself!