s as the day
Would quake to look on."

As he passes to the Queen's closet in this tense and dangerous mood, he
sees the king on his knees. His brow relaxes in a moment; he stops,
looks curiously at him, and says, familiarly--

"Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying."

He did not mean to do it, because he was on his way to his mother's
closet, but some reason must be found. The word "praying" suggests it.
"This would be scanned;" and he scans it, and decides to leave him for
another day. As he enters the closet to speak the words "like daggers,"
his quick decisive gesture and shrill peremptory tones alarm the queen.
She rises to call for help; he seizes her roughly: "Come, come, and sit
you down." Nothing can mark Hamlet's awful resentment more than his
persistence through two interruptions that would have unnerved the
bravest, and checked the most relentless spirit. As he looks at his
mother there is that in his countenance bids her cry aloud for
assistance. There is a movement behind the arras. Hamlet lunges at once.
Is it the king? No; it is but Polonius. Had it been the king, it would
not have diverted him from his purpose. He is no more afraid of killing
than he is afraid of death, and is as hard to arrest in his reproof of
his mother as in his talk with his father:

"Leave wringing of your hands; peace, sit you down."

His mother confesses her guilt. Hamlet is not appeased. He vilifies her
husband with increasing vehemence; the Ghost rises as if to protect the
queen. "Do not forget," he cries, although the king's name was at that
moment on Hamlet's lips in terms of bitterest contempt. But it was
understood between the two spirits that it was the queen's husband and
not his father's murderer that he was thus denouncing. After the
disappearance of the ghost, he turns again to his mother; and on leaving
her almost reluctantly, without further punishment, asks pardon of his
own genius--"Forgive me this my virtue," more authoritative to Hamlet
than a legion of spirits.

This scene is the spiritual climax of the play, and from it the whole
tragedy directly proceeds. The death of Polonius leads on the one side
to the madness of Ophelia, on the other to the revenge of Laertes and
the final catastrophe. Hamlet's apathy at the death of Polonius is of
the same character as his oblivion of the ghost's command, and has the
same origin. For there is no apathy like that of an over-mastering
passion, whether it