Hamlet, hoping the concealed person is the King, runs the old man
through the body.

Evidently this act is intended to stand in sharp contrast with Hamlet's
sparing of his enemy. The King would have been just as defenceless
behind the arras as he had been on his knees; but here Hamlet is already
excited and in action, and the chance comes to him so suddenly that he
has no time to 'scan' it. It is a minor consideration, but still for the
dramatist not unimportant, that the audience would wholly sympathise
with Hamlet's attempt here, as directed against an enemy who is lurking
to entrap him, instead of being engaged in a business which perhaps to
the bulk of the audience then, as now, seemed to have a 'relish of
salvation in't.'

We notice in Hamlet, at the opening of this interview, something of the
excited levity which followed the _dénouement_ of the play-scene. The
death of Polonius sobers him; and in the remainder of the interview he
shows, together with some traces of his morbid state, the peculiar
beauty and nobility of his nature. His chief desire is not by any means
to ensure his mother's silent acquiescence in his design of revenge; it
is to save her soul. And while the rough work of vengeance is repugnant
to him, he is at home in this higher work. Here that fatal feeling, 'it
is no matter,' never shows itself. No father-confessor could be more
selflessly set upon his end of redeeming a fellow-creature from
degradation, more stern or pitiless in denouncing the sin, or more eager
to welcome the first token of repentance. There is something infinitely
beautiful in that sudden sunshine of faith and love which breaks out
when, at the Queen's surrender,

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain,