RALPH: Hamlet asks his brain to get to work, and it does — in the middle of this soliloquy, Hamlet thinks of a new plan to get more evidence that Claudius really killed his father.

SARAH: And it's brilliant that Hamlet is inspired by the arrival of the company of players, getting from them the idea of using a piece of theatre to expose Claudius — a play within the play.

RALPH: Yes, Sarah — the performance of the players was what led Hamlet into the hole of self-recrimination that began the soliloquy, and it's also going to be what leads him out of it.

SARAH: As it turns out, Hamlet's idea to cause a criminal to confess by using a play would have been reasonable to Shakespeare's audience. There were numerous accounts at the time of criminals being so moved by a play that they confessed their crimes. These accounts were useful for playwrights and producers who were anxious to defend the theatre against those who argued that the theatre promoted immoral behavior.

RALPH: We should also notice Shakespeare's wonderful language in this passage. He takes a common proverb at the time — "Murder will out," meaning a murder can't be kept secret — and turns it into this line: "For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ."

SARAH: This is not only an eloquent phrase, but it also redeems the power of speech and words, the very thing Hamlet was so harshly criticizing earlier in the monologue. If murder speaks out and confesses itself, this is a kind of action that does indeed lead to justice.