The other passage upon which the theory of premeditated madness rests occurs in the great scene with his mother, Act III. 4, during which she becomes convinced that Hamlet is out of his senses by seeing him kill the good Polonius, and hearing him rave as if he saw a spectre. She was the earliest of the critics and experts who are profoundly convinced of his madness. At the close of the scene, it occurs to him to avail himself of her misapprehension to procure continued immunity from any suspicion of design against the King. How shall he do this,--how contrive to clinch her conviction of his madness, and send her reeking with it to inform the King? His subtle intelligence does at this point invent the only simulation of madness that the play contains. He is just about to bid the Queen good-night: "So, again, good-night." Then the device occurs to him: "One word more, good lady;" and the Queen, turning, says, "What shall I do?" "Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed; Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse; And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out, That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know." This is the very craftiness of a madman, to try to convince people that, if he ever seems to be insane, it is for a sane motive. Hamlet reckons that the Queen is so deeply imbued with the idea of his insanity as to interpret this disclaimer of his into the strongest confirmation. Hamlet, moreover, not only seems to be accounting for symptoms of madness, but to be making a confidant of his mother; he begs her not to betray the secret object of his strange behavior. This seems to her to be the very quintessence of madness, to confess to her that he is feigning it out of craft, and to suppose that she would not apprise her husband, who must be the special object of that craft and most in danger from it. He must be indeed preposterously mad; so in parting she pretends to receive his confidential disclosure:-- "Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me." She may safely promise that, when she means to repair to the King with quite a different version of Hamlet's condition, the very one upon which he counts to keep the King deceived. And in the next scene she conveys her strong impression to him:-- KING. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet? QUEEN. Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit, Behind the arras hearing something stir, He whips his rapier out, and cries, "A rat!" And in his brainish apprehension kills The unseen good old man.