were 'so deeply engaged in a sorrowful part that they wept even after
having returned to their lodgings;' whilst Quinctilian reports of
himself that, 'having undertaken to move a certain passion in others,
he had entered so far into his part as to find himself surprised, not
only with the shedding of tears, but also with a paleness of countenance
and the behaviour of a man truly weighed down with grief.'

Hamlet has listened to the player. In the concluding monologue of the
second act--which is twice as long in the new quarto--we are told of the
effect produced upon his mind when seeing that an actor, who merely holds
a mirror up to Nature--

... but in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann'd....
... And all for nothing!--For Hecuba?

whilst he (Hamlet), 'a dull and muddy-mettled rascal,' [21] like
John-a-dreams, in spite of his strong 'motive and the cue for passion,'
mistrusts them and is afraid of being guided by them.

All at once, Hamlet feels the weight and pressure of a mode of thought
which declares war against the impulses of Nature, calling man a born
sinner.

Who calls me villain? ...
... Gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha!
'S wounds,[1] I should take it: for it cannot be.