be true. After the play he searches for Claudius and finds him in "prayer" or what he thinks to be prayer. This is the climax of Hamlet. Claudius is alone, unsuspecting and vulnerable. Hamlet sees this and says to him self, "Now might I do it pat, now he is praying. And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven;…A villain kills my father; and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven… He took my father grossly, full of bread; with all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May:… No! When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage… or about some act that has no relish of salvation in’t;… And that his soul may be... damned…" (lines 66-87 p.198). He could have killed him he had the best opportunity but he delayed for in his Christian belief, when one is "in the purging of his soul" (line 78 p.198) he will be sent to heaven. Hamlet didn’t want to send Claudius to the eternal paradise his father was deprived of, so Hamlet walks away for a more revengeful event. But the King was not and could not pray hopelessly saying "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: / Words without thoughts never to heaven go." (lines 90-91 p. 198). A missed opportunity. Claudius could not repent for his sins for he did not feel guilty enough to give up his wicked prizes of power, ambition and his brother’s queen. From this point on everything goes down hill. Near the end Hamlet finally realizes his actions have been cowardly delayed. "How all occasions do inform against me, / and spur my dull revenge!…/ Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple / of thinking too precisely on the event, / a thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom / and ever three parts coward,… / Sith I have cause and will and strength and means / to do’t." (lines 33-46 p.206). Finally he realizes something about himself. His cowardly reluctance is due to ethical considerations. He is so frustra...
