HAMLET         O heart, lose not thy nature. Let not ever

The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom –

Let me be cruel, not unnatural:

I will speak daggers to her but use none.

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites.

How in my words somever she be shent

To give them seals never my soul consent.

(Exit.)              (3.2.383-389)

Hamlet knows he’s on the verge of losing control: O heart, lose not thy nature. Don’t go too far; don’t forget that, despite everything, she’s your mother, and you love her. Let not ever the soul of Nero enter this firm bosom—let me be cruel, not unnatural. The Roman emperor Nero had his mother murdered, then—according to legend—ripped open her womb to see where he himself had come from; Nero is the archetype of the murderous, crazed, unnatural son (but also, again, an invocation of wanting to probe, to search, to know the ultimately unknowable, here in grotesquely horrifying terms). I’m resolute, firm, Hamlet says, even hard-hearted, but even though I’m planning to speak harshly to her, I’m not actually going to hurt her. I’m not. NO. He might be having to say this out loud to reassure himself, as a kind of affirmation, or admonition. (Because he knows it’s a possibility, he’s so wound up.) I will speak daggers to her but use none. I’ll be harsh, violent, penetrating in my words—but I wouldn’t hurt my mother? (Would I? Could I?)

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites: no matter what I want to do to her, I’ll confine myself to words. (Or else, perhaps, I’m going to say things, and say them in ways, that I don’t really mean.) How in my words somever she be shent to give them seals never my soul consent. Whatever I say to her, however fierce my reproaches and rebukes, I’m not going to harm her. I’m resolved on that. I couldn’t. (Could I?)

And that’s the end of the scene. For all that this play—and perhaps this scene—is cut in performance, to contemplate Hamlet’s words, line by line, the sheer volume and variety, the agility and the agony, is a LOT. Actors, you have this critic’s admiration in even contemplating it.