ct a few lines before “Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not” (3.2.229-230). This new proof drives Hamlet to use more words. He is again to talk of killing, and he says, "Now I could drink hot blood" (3.2.379). He again associates this with a role, that of Nero. "The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom" (3.2.383). Later, Hamlet again talks himself out of character and does not kill the King. He puts it off until later and says, "When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, At gaming, swearing, or about some act That has no relish of salvation in it, Then trip him that his heels may kick at heaven, And that his soul may be dammed and black" (3.3.89-94) He is waiting until Claudius fits the part of a villain. His action is paralyzed whenever something does not fit the part. He needs his revenge to be dramatic, so that he may get into it and finally play it out, and it takes him the next scene and an Act to finally do this. After Hamlet backs out of killing Claudius, Hamlet says to his mother, "O shame, where is thy blush?"(3.4.72). He is voicing his distaste for Gertrude, not only for marrying his uncle, but also for not being true to herself. Hamlet believes that she should show some shame for her sins, but she does not. Hamlet is contradicting himself in this. He has been duplicitous and untrue for two- thirds of the play. At this point, he is still not sure as how he is to proceed. Hamlet is caught in the middle of acting and objectivity. Hamlet finally gets his form together, and decides to portray the part his father had given him, after he sees the soldiers going off to war to die. "The imminent death of twenty thousand men continent to hide the slain. O, from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth! That, for fantasy and a trick of fame, Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and Those soldiers fight and die...
