Part of the Lord’s Prayer in MATTHEW 6:9-13 is “…lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…” Claudius contemplates prayer as a way to be delivered from the evil of his own making, but finds he cannot because his will to sin is stronger than his desire to turn away from it in order to seek forgiveness: “Pray can I not. / Though my inclination be as sharp as will, / My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent…” (III, iii).
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