...what should cause him fear, as he later realizes: "The spirit that I have seen/ May be a devil . . ., yea, and perhaps,/ Out of my weakness and my melancholy,/...very potent with such spirits, /Abuses me to damn me" (2.2.594—9). "The devil take thy soul" (5.1.251), bids Laertes, when Hamlet, the slayer of his father,...

...Hamlet (1623), II, ii, 636-40: 'The devil hath power/To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps/Out of my weakness and my melancholy - /As he is very potent with such spirits - /Abuses me to damn me.' 172 Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, book IV, prosa 7. ceasing to believe in His divinity but...

...are never allayed: "The spirit that I have seen /May be the devil, and the devil hath power /T'assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps, /Out of my weakness and my melancholy [...] Abuses me to damn me." 9 If this "portentous figure"70 is "so majestical", why does the dramatist...