#1956493 IADES - 2022 - Diplomata (Terceiro Secretário)

Text 7 to answer question.

Act III
Scene III
A Room in the Castle

KING CLAUDIUS

Thanks, dear my lord.

[Exit POLONIUS]

O, my ofence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,

A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what’s in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon’d being down? Then I’ll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?
[...].
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.

Retires and kneels
[Enter HAMLET]
HAMLET

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann’d:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.

O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
‘Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
[...].

SHAKESPEARE, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Green World Classics, 2017, p. 114-115, with adaptations

Regarding the vocabulary of the text, decide whether the statements below are right (C) or wrong (E).

The word “bound” could be replaced by constrained without changing the meaning of the sentence.