In Shakespeare’s four major tragedies, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Othello, the protagonists’ most pivotal soliloquies all hinge upon the same shared ethical dilemma, an incongruity between two incompatible value-systems. A Christian ethos of humility and compassion cannot be reconciled, logically, to a secular, Machiavellian exaltation of worldly power and reputation. Shakespeare’s tragic heroes are concerned about the Christian hereafter, but at the same time anxious to preserve their reputation here and now, in this present life. For Hegel, tragedy is a representation of an axiological conflict, a collision of two opposed moral goods. And in keeping with this insight, the core structure of these tragic figures’ soliloquies can be understood as a tension between shame (the price of mercy) and guilt (the price of power). Shakespeare’s exploration of this conflict through soliloquies emerges out of his engagement with Senecan tragedy. In contrast to Seneca, Shakespeare takes pains to undermine the potential grandeur of his tragic protagonists’ choice of guilt over shame, i.e. power over compassion, introducing new, countervailing undertones of casuistry and self-delusion.