Soft! now to my mother!
O heart, lose not thy nature!

This nature of his, inclining to mildness and gentleness, he wishes to preserve, and he resolves upon being 'cruel, not unnatural.' In vain one seeks here for logic, and for the boundary between two words which to ordinary common sense appear synonymous. In Montaigne, however, we discover the clue of such a senseless argumentation. In one of his Essays, [41] which contains a confusion of ideas that might well make the humane Shakspere shudder, he writes:—

'Our condition, both public and private, is full of imperfections; yet there is nothing useless in Nature, not even uselessness itself…. Our being is cemented with sickly qualities: ambition, jealousy, envy, vengeance, superstition, despair dwell in us, and hold there so natural a possession that their counterfeit is also recognised in beasts; for instance, cruelty—so unnatural a vice. Yet he who would root out the seed of these qualities from the human breast would destroy the fundamental conditions of our life.'

Now, Hamlet's resolution to be 'cruel, but not unnatural,' is but a fresh satire against Montaigne's train of thoughts, who would fain be a Humanist, but who does not break with the reasoning of Loyola and of the Church, by which he permits himself to be guided as by the competent authority, and which tolerates cruelty—nay, orders its being employed for the furtherance of what it calls the 'good aim.'

The idea that cruelty is a necessary but useful evil, no doubt induced Montaigne [42] to declare that to kill a man from a feeling of revenge is tantamount to our protecting him, for we thus 'withdraw him from our attacks.' Furthermore, this Humanist argues that revenge is to be regretted if its object does not feel its intention; for, even as he who takes revenge intends to derive pleasure from it, so he upon whom revenge is taken must perceive that intention, in order to be harrowed with feelings of pain and repentance. 'To kill him, is to render further attacks against him impossible; not to revenge what he has done.'

Shakspere already gives Hamlet an opportunity in the following scene to prove to us that there is no boundary between cruel and unnatural conduct; and that one cannot be cruel and yet remain natural. In the most telling words, the cause of Hamlet's want of energy is substantiated. Fate gives the criminal, the King, into the hands of Hamlet. It is the most important moment of the drama. A stroke of the sword would be enough to do the deed of revenge. The cause which makes Hamlet hesitate is, that the criminal is engaged in prayer, and that—

He took my father grossly, full of bread,
With all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands, who knows save Heaven?

Does Hamlet, then, not act with refined cruelty?

Here, a new thought is inserted, which we mentioned already in the beginning, and which turns the balance at the decisive moment:—

But in our circumstance and course of thought
It is heavy with him. [43]