O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven, &c.
This speech well marks the difference between crime and guilt of habit. The conscience here is still admitted to audience. Nay, even as an audible soliloquy, it is far less improbable than is supposed by such as have watched men only in the beaten road of their feelings. But the final—'all may be well!' is remarkable;—the degree of merit attributed by the self-flattering soul to its own struggle, though baffled, and to the indefinite half-promise, half-command, to persevere in religious duties. The solution is in the divine 'medium' of the Christian doctrine of expiation:—not what you have done, but what you are, must determine.
'Ib.' Hamlet's speech:—
Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying:
And now I'll do it:—And so he goes to heaven:
And so am I revenged? That would be scann'd, &c.
Dr. Johnson's mistaking of the marks of reluctance and procrastination for impetuous, horror-striking, fiendishness!—Of such importance is it to understand the germ of a character. But the interval taken by Hamlet's speech is truly awful! And then—
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go,—
O what a lesson concerning the essential difference between wishing and willing, and the folly of all motive-mongering, while the individual self remains!
'Ib.' sc. 4.
'Ham'. A bloody deed;—almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
'Queen'. As kill a king?
I confess that Shakspeare has left the character of the Queen in an unpleasant perplexity. Was she, or was she not, conscious of the fratricide?