哈姆雷特反抗母后和他似乎在拖延復仇行動，通常被分別看待成不同行為。然而，如將此劇參照塞尼加派有關赫丘力士擇善棄慾的故事（十字路口的赫丘力士）及看成對亞里斯多德《尼各馬科倫理學》的回響，則可提供另一套解讀方式。我們可視哈姆雷特對人、事的反應為依亞式內在慎思的做法，即對德性的谨慎選擇。

The ways in which Hamlet resists his Mother and seems to delay his act of revenge are often viewed separately. Yet reference to the Senecan tale of Hercules' choice of Virtue over Pleasure (Hercules at the Crossroads) and an awareness of clear echoes of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics in the play suggest a reading by which Hamlet's responses to persons and events are all viewed as a deliberate choice of Virtue in the Aristotelian sense, made by the Aristotelian method of inward deliberation.