drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.

He has been sent for by his mother, and is going to her chamber; and so
vehement and revengeful is his mood that he actually fancies himself in
danger of using daggers to her as well as speaking them.[58]

In this mood, on his way to his mother's chamber, he comes upon the
King, alone, kneeling, conscience-stricken and attempting to pray. His
enemy is delivered into his hands.

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.[59] That would be scanned.

He scans it; and the sword that he drew at the words, 'And now I'll do
it,' is thrust back into its sheath. If he killed the villain now he
would send his soul to heaven; and he would fain kill soul as well as
body.

That this again is an unconscious excuse for delay is now pretty
generally agreed, and it is needless to describe again the state of mind
which, on the view explained in our last lecture, is the real cause of
Hamlet's failure here. The first five words he utters, 'Now might I do
it,' show that he has no effective _desire_ to 'do it'; and in the
little sentences that follow, and the long pauses between them, the
endeavour at a resolution, and the sickening return of melancholic
paralysis, however difficult a task they set to the actor, are plain