she must
either be wrenched back to it or kept violently in the channel to which
she has been forced.

In _Macbeth_, a not dissimilar play, the life violently altered is kept
in the strange channel by a succession of violent acts. In _Hamlet_,
when Hamlet's merciful wisdom has decided that the life violently
altered shall not be wrenched back, his destroying wisdom decides that
she shall not be kept in the strange channel. The King, just in his way,
seeks to find out if Hamlet be sane. If Hamlet be sane, he must die. His
death will secure the King's position. By his death life will be kept
in the strange channel. Polonius, the King's agent, learns that Hamlet
is sane and something more. Fate demands violence this way if she may
not have it in the other. She offers an instant for the doing of her
purpose. Hamlet puts the instant by with his baffling swiftness, which
strikes on the instant, when the Queen's honour and his own life depend
on it. The first bout in this play of the baffling of action falls to
Hamlet. The second bout, in which the King's purpose is again baffled,
by the sending of the two courtiers to their death in England, also
falls to Hamlet. The bloody purpose from outside life and the bloody
purpose from within life are both baffled and kept from being by the two
extremes so perfectly balanced in the wise nature.

Extremes in the Shakespearean system are tragical things. In
Shakespeare, the pathway of excess leads, not as with Blake, to the
palace of wisdom, but to destruction. The two extremes in Hamlet, of
slowness and swiftness, set up in life the counter forces which destroy
extremes, so that life, the common thing, may continue to be common. The
mercy of Hamlet leaves the King free to plot his death. The swiftness of
Hamlet gives to the King a hand and sword to work his will.

In other plays, the working of extremes to the punishment dealt by life
to all excess is simple and direct. In this play, nothing is simple and
direct. Fate's direct workings are baffled by a mind too complex to be
active on the common planes. The baffling of Fate's purpose leads to a
condition in life like the "slack water" between tides. Laertes, when
his father is killed, raises the town and comes raving to the presence
to stab the killer. He is baffled by the King's wisdom. Ophelia,
"incapable of her own distress," goes mad and drowns herself. The play
seems to hesitate and stand still while the energies spilled in the