A battle between philosophy and rhetoric also occurs in the play within the play.   In the minds of the audience, there occurs an oscillation between the art of the the show and its subject matter.  Viewers oscillate between the rhetorical presentation and the material of the play,  so that through the dramatic representation they may come to a moral conclusion.  For the king the oscillation immediately traps his conscience, for the judgment produced by the oscillation is against himself.  The reality of the his own bloody deed suddenly crashes in upon his own rhetorical posture and the play is interrupted.

The motif of the element of play and the substantive reality which the play models implicates, of course, the play of Hamlet itself, and its imitation of the true relationship between rhetoric and philosophy that occurs outside the play, in "nature."    

Then again . . . .