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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: divided will.
Of all this Guildenstern and Rosencrantz realise nothing. They bow
and smirk and smile, and what the one says the other echoes with
sickliest intonation. When, at last, by means of the play within
the play, and the puppets in their dalliance, Hamlet 'catches the
conscience' of the King, and drives the wretched man in terror from
his throne, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz see no more in his conduct
than a rather painful breach of Court etiquette. That is as far as
they can attain to in 'the contemplation of the spectacle of life
with appropriate emotions.' They are close to his very secret and
know nothing of it. Nor would there be any use in telling them.
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