As we said, the behavior of Hamlet, which is the most natural for him in his
situation, and which springs directly from it, is also the most serviceable for the
accomplishment of his work. To foresee that when he gives himself out as insane,
others will so regard him ; and to desire that they should do so, and therefore to
sustain the delusion, which they put upon themselves, by conduct which should tend



WERDER J6l

to strengthen it, — seems to him to amount to the same thing. Therefore, to this de-
gree, which is relatively slight, he makes believe, \it plays the madman. But because
it is essentially his truth, the effect of his real suffering, of his shattered being, to which
his mind, still ever free, gives vent so far as it dare^ without betraying his secret^-*
because it is his torture, his rage, his cry of woe, his agony, thus outwardly expressed,
thus fully and entirely become known : therefore this play of his is not nurely feigning,
and because not merely^ therefore not feigning at all, in the strict sense of the word.
