Hamlet and Cicero on Conscience

“Conscience” in Hamlet is often in dialectic, or even process of formation;
in Cicero, more idealized. Compare:

HAMLET: O...that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!
(1.2.133-6)

HAMLET:
The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
(2.2.633-4)

POLONIUS:
We are oft to blame in this
(’Tis too much proved), that with devotion’s visage
And pious action we do sugar o’er
The devil himself.
CLAUDIUS (aside):
’tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my
conscience.
(3.1.52-8)

HAMLET:
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
(3.1.91-6)

LAERTES:
...I’ll not be juggled with.
To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation.
(4.5.148-150)

CLAUDIUS (to LAERTES):
Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend...
(4.7.1-2)

HAMLET (to Horatio):
Why, man, they did make love to this employment.
They are not near my conscience. Their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow.
(5.2.64-6, regarding the changed letter ordering the death
of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.)

HAMLET (to Horatio):
He that hath killed my king and whored my mother,
Popped in between th’ election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage—is ’t not perfect conscience
To quit him with this arm? And is ’t not to be damned
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?
(5.2.72-80)

LAERTES (aside):
And yet it is almost against my conscience...
(5.2.324, having second thoughts
about poisoning Hamlet
after seeing Gertrude
drink from the poison chalice.)

CICERO:
There is a true law, a right reason, conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil. Whether it enjoins or forbids, the good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with indifference. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law, and is not liable either to derogation or abrogation. Neither the senate nor the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal law of justice. It needs no other expositor and interpreter than our own conscience. It is not one thing at Rome and another at Athens; one thing to–day and another to–morrow; but in all times and nations this universal law must for ever reign, eternal and imperishable. It is the sovereign master and emperor of all beings. God himself is its author,—its promulgator,—its enforcer. He who obeys it not, flies from himself, and does violence to the very nature of man. For his crime he must endure the severest penalties hereafter, even if he avoid the usual misfortunes of the present life.
- from De Re Publica [Of The Republic], Book III Section 22; trans. F. Barham [2]

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NOTES:
[1] All Hamlet quotes from the Folger online edition:
https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/entire-play/

[2] Cicero quote from Wikiquote:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cicero

IMAGES:
Left: Cicero. Marble, Renaissance copy after a Roman original. Vatican Museums; Museo Chiaramonti, section XI, no.12. Photographer: Yair-haklai (2 October 2009). Creative Commons. Via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marcus_Tullius_Cicero-Vatican_Museums.jpg
Center: Cicero Denounces Catiline, by Cesare Maccari. Fresco, 1889, Maccari Hall, Palazzo Madama. Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cicer%C3%B3n_denuncia_a_Catilina,_por_Cesare_Maccari.jpg
Right: Marcus Tullius Cicero, by Bertel Thorvaldsen as copy from roman original, in Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen. May 2007 photo by Gunnar Bach Pedersen, released to public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thorvaldsen_Cicero.jpg

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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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