Playing the King in HamletShakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet, presents in the character of King Claudius an intelligent, cunning and apparently altruistic ruler. This essay will present a detailed and critically supported consideration of the very capable and astute King Claudius. For the entire drama a life-or-death mental competition ensues between Claudio and the protagonist. John Masefield discusses this mental battle in “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”: The king is probing Hamlet's mind with crude human probes, to find out if he is mad. Hamlet is searching the king's mind with the best of intellectual investigations, to find out if he is guilty. The investigation he uses, the fragment of a work within a work, is the work of a man who knows the impotence of the intellect - "Our will and our destiny behave so contrary that our devices are still overthrown" - and a belief in the omnipotence of the intellect: "Our thoughts are ours, their ends are not ours". (n. pag.)Salvador de Madariaga in “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern” talks about Claudius' relationship with the two emissaries and former friends of Hamlet, who escorted the prince to his execution in England:The two young men receive an assignment from the king which , whatever the King's secret intentions, is honorable. Hamlet, the King tells them, is not what he was. The cause of change "I can't dream of it." Therefore, I beg you with your companions to attract him to pleasures and to collect as much as you can from the occasion if something unknown to us afflicts him so that it lies open in our remedy (n . pag.). Like everyone else...... middle of paper ...... Embassy of Death." The Wheel of Fire. London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1954. p. 38-39. http:/ /server1.hypermart.net/hamlet/wheefire.html N. pag.Mack, Maynard “The World of Hamlet”. tragedies Ed. Clarice Swisher: Greenhaven Press, 1996. "On Hamlet." London: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1964. p.14-16 http://www.freehomepages.com/hamlet/other /essayson.htm#demag-ess N. pag.Masefield, John. "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark". N. p.: np, 1911. http://www.mwsc.edu/~eng368/summer97/public/7.24.97-16.23.59.html N. Pag.Shakespeare, William The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos..