HAMLET                     Now I am alone.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here,

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

Could force his soul so to his own conceit

That from her working all the visage wanned

– Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit – and all for nothing –

For Hecuba?   (2.2.484-493)

And it’s a great exhalation, bent over, clutching himself: Now I am alone. Oooof. Oooooof. I pulled that off, got away with it. And also: I’m so tired, this is all such a tremendous strain. Thank goodness I’m alone, I couldn’t keep that up for a moment longer.

But also: O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! I’m such a loser, so pathetic, so unrefined, ignoble, dishonourable. (The players might more readily be thought of as rogues and vagabonds; Hamlet imagines that they are his superiors in every way.) Is it not monstrous that this player here—isn’t it a kind of scandal—that this ACTOR, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion—it’s make-believe, it’s all fake! just a simulacrum of emotion—could force his soul so to his own conceit that from her working all the visage wanned—he was so convincing, apparently so caught up in what he was describing that he went pale, for heaven’s sake! He was living it! There were tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect—he looked maddened by it, he was almost weeping—a broken voice, and his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit—his voice was cracking, every aspect of his body, his gestures, his intonation were expressing suffering and grief. It was total, absolute. But it was all for nothing, all that apparently genuine emotion; it was for Hecuba? All that passionate grief for that long-dead legendary queen, a creation of words alone? (Why can art say and do what I cannot? Why can acting act when I cannot?)