‘Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.

O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever

The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.

Let me be cruel, not unnatural.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites.

How in my words somever she be shent,

To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

[III, iii, 36–72] King Claudius, the usurper (and Hamlet’s stepfather), at prayer, acknowledges his heinous crime, but acknowledges too that he cannot find it in himself to repent it:

O, my offence is rank. It smells to heaven.

It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,

A brother’s murder! Pray can I not,

Though inclination be as sharp as will.

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,

And like a man to double business bound

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect. What if this cursèd hand

Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy

But to confront the visage of offence?

And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,

To be forestallèd ere we come to fall

Or pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up.

My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?

That cannot be, since I am still possessed

Of those effects for which I did the murder,

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

May one be pardoned and retain th’ offence?

In the corrupted currents of this world

Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice;

And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law; but ’tis not so above.

There is no shuffling. There the action lies

In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled,

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,

To give in evidence. What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can. What can it not?

Yet what can it when one cannot repent?

O, wretched state! O, bosom black as death!

O limèd soul, that, struggling to be free

Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay.

Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.

All may be well.

[III, iii, 73–95] Hamlet, finding Claudius at prayer and vulnerable, senses a golden opportunity to kill him, but pauses, fearing he might thus save a soul whom he thinks deserves damnation:

Now might I do it pat, now ’a is a-praying.

And now I’ll do’t. And so ’a goes to heaven.

And so am I revenged. That would be scanned.

A villain kills my father, and for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send