A Vision at Midnight

Great was the sorrow in Denmark when the good King Hamlet suddenly died in a mysterious manner. The rightful heir, the young Prince Hamlet, was at that time absent in Germany, studying at the University of Wittenberg, and before he could reach home, his uncle Claudius, brother to the late King, had seized the throne. More than this: within two months after the death of her husband, Claudius had persuaded the widowed Queen Gertrude to marry himself.

Hamlet, called back to Denmark by the death of his father, met on his return this second terrible shock of the hasty marriage of his mother. To one of his noble nature such an action seemed almost incredible. For not only had Queen Gertrude been apparently devoted to her first husband, but the two brothers were so absolutely different, both in appearance and character, that it was difficult to imagine how anyone who had known the noble King Hamlet could descend to the base and contemptible Claudius.

King Claudius now usurped all the rights of sovereignty, and by being very suave and gracious to those who surrounded him he hoped to become popular. He would fain have banished all remembrance of the late King, though he was glib enough in uttering hypocritical words of sorrow. By pressing on the festivities of his marriage with Gertrude, he hoped to get rid of all signs of mourning. But the young Prince Hamlet refused to lay aside his suits of woe. Among the gay throng that crowded the Court of the new monarch he moved, a figure apart, clad in the deepest black, and with his brow clouded with melancholy. His mother, Queen Gertrude, tried some feeble attempts at consolation, but her commonplace, conventional remarks only showed how shallow was her own nature, and how far she was from understanding her son’s depth of feeling. She begged him to put off his sombre raiment, and look with a friendly eye on his uncle.

“Do not for ever with thy veiled lids seek for thy noble father in the dust,” she urged him. “Thou knowest it is common; all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.”

“Ay, madam, it is common,” replied Hamlet.

“If it be, why seems it so particular with thee?” asked the Queen.

“‘Seems’ madam! Nay, it is; I know not ‘seems,’” said Hamlet, with noble indignation. And then he went on to say that it was not his inky cloak, nor the customary suits of solemn black, nor sighs, nor tears, nor a dejected visage, together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, that could denote him truly. “These indeed ‘seem,’ for they are actions that a man might play. But I have that within which passeth show; these but the trappings and the suits of woe.”

Then King Claudius took up the theme, and delivered a homily to Hamlet on the duty of remembering that the death of fathers was a very common event, and one over which it was very wrong to sorrow much. All fathers died, one after another; it was a law of nature, and it was therefore a fault against heaven, and most absurd in reason, to lament over something which must certainly happen. To a son who had loved his father, as Hamlet had loved his, such cold-blooded moralising was nothing short of torture, and when Claudius went on to bid him throw to earth his unprevailing woe, and think of himself as of a father, the young Prince shuddered with horror at the suggestion. “For let the world take note, you are the most immediate to our throne,” added Claudius pompously, looking round at the assembled courtiers. They all bowed subserviently at this announcement, and none of them dared so much as to hint that the son of their late King was their rightful ruler.

When he found how events were going, Hamlet no longer cared to remain in his own country, and would have preferred to return to his studies at Wittenberg; but when his mother joined her entreaties to his uncle’s, in urging him to stay in Denmark, Hamlet consented to do so.

In spite of the forced joviality which the new King tried to impose on his subjects, there was a feeling of uneasiness abroad. First, there were rumours of war. The late King had been a valiant soldier, and had fought victoriously with the ambitious neighbouring State of Norway. King Fortinbras of Norway, out of pride, had challenged King Hamlet, but had met with defeat. Fortinbras himself was slain, and some of his possessions were forfeited to Denmark. On the death of Hamlet, young Fortinbras, thinking that perhaps the country would be in an unsettled state, or holding a poor opinion of the worth of its new ruler, resolved to try to get back some of the lands his father had lost. He therefore collected a band of reckless followers, ready for any desperate enterprise, and prepared to invade the country. News of this reaching Denmark, warlike preparations were at once set on foot; day and night there was toiling of shipwrights and casting of cannon, and strict watch was kept in all directions against the possible invaders.

But it was not alone the thought of the invasion that disturbed the minds of the Danish officers. A strange occurrence had lately happened, and they feared it boded no good to the country. As the Gentlemen of the Guard, Marcellus and Bernardo, kept their watch on the platform of the castle at Elsinore the Ghost of the late King appeared to them. It looked exactly the same as they had known him in real life, clad in the very armour he had on when he had fought against Fortinbras of Norway. For two nights running this figure had appeared before them, passing by them three times with slow and stately march, while they, turned almost to jelly with fear, stood dumb, and did not speak to it. In deep secrecy they imparted the news to Horatio, a fellow-student and great friend of the young Prince, and on the third night he kept watch with them. Everything happened exactly as they had said, and at the accustomed hour the apparition again appeared. Horatio spoke to it, imploring it, if possible, to tell the reason of its coming. At first the Ghost would not answer, but it was just lifting its head as if about to speak, when a cock crew; then, starting like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons, it faded from their sight.

By Horatio’s advice, they agreed to tell young Hamlet what they had seen; the spirit dumb to them might speak to him. Hamlet heard their tale with astonishment. He resolved to watch, himself, that night, and if the apparition again assumed his father’s person, to speak to it, though all the spirits of evil should bid him hold his peace. He begged the officers to keep silence about what they had already seen, and about whatsoever else might happen, and promised to visit them on the platform between eleven and twelve o’clock that night.

At the appointed hour Hamlet was on the spot, and a few minutes after the clock had struck twelve the Ghost appeared. Deeply amazed, but resolute to know the cause why his father’s spirit could not rest, but thus revisited the earth, Hamlet implored the Ghost to speak and tell him the meaning.

“Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?” he entreated.

The apparition made no answer, but beckoned to Hamlet to follow it, as if it wished to speak to him alone.

“Look, with what courteous action it waves you to more retired ground. But do not go with it,” said Marcellus.

“No, by no means,” said Horatio.

“It will not speak; then I will follow it,” said Hamlet.

“Do not, my lord,” entreated Horatio.

“Why, what should be the fear?” said Hamlet. “I do not set my life at a pin’s fee; and for my soul, what can it do to that, being a thing immortal as itself? It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.”

Again Hamlet’s companions did their utmost to hinder him, even seizing hold of him to prevent his going, for they feared lest the mysterious visitant should lure him on to his own destruction. But Hamlet shook off their detaining hands, and, bidding the Ghost go before, he boldly followed.

Having led the young Prince to a lonely part of the ramparts, the Ghost at last consented to speak. He told Hamlet that he was indeed the spirit of his father, doomed for a certain term to walk the night, and by day to suffer various penalties, till the sins committed in his life had been atoned for. He then went on to exhort Hamlet that, if ever he had loved his father, he should revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

“Murder!” gasped Hamlet.

“Murder most foul, as in the best it is; but this most foul, strange, and unnatural,” returned the Ghost solemnly. “Now, Hamlet, hear. ’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark is by a forged account of my death rankly deceived. But know, thou noble youth, the serpent that stung thy father’s life now wears his crown.”

“O my prophetic soul! My uncle!” exclaimed Hamlet.

“Ay!” answered the Ghost; and then he broke into rage against the wicked Claudius, who, after murdering his brother, had, with his subtle craft and traitorous gifts, contrived to win the affections of the widowed Queen. “O Hamlet, what a falling off was there!” lamented the Ghost, for he could not help knowing how infinitely beneath him, even in natural gifts, was his contemptible brother.

“Sleeping within my orchard, my custom always of the afternoon,” he continued, “thy uncle stole on me, with juice of henbane in a vial, which he poured into my ears.”

The effect of this poison was instant and horrible death, and again the Ghost urged Hamlet to avenge his murder. But he commanded his son that, whatever he did against his uncle, he was to contrive no harm against his mother.

“Leave her to heaven, and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, to prick and sting,” he concluded. “Fare thee well! The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, and begins to pale his uneffectual fire. Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.”

“Remember thee! Ay, thou poor Ghost, while memory holds a seat in this distracted globe,” cried Hamlet, as the vision faded away, and far across the sea a faint lightening of the eastern horizon showed that the dawn would soon appear. “Remember thee! Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws of books that youth and observation copied there, and thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain, unmixed with baser matter; yes, by heaven!—O villain, villain, smiling, cursed villain! My tables—meet it is I set it down, that one may smile and smile, and be a villain—at least, I’m sure it may be so in Denmark. So, uncle, there you are,” putting his tablets away. “Now to my word. It is ‘Adieu, adieu! Remember me!’ I have sworn it!”

Horatio and Marcellus now came hurrying up, much alarmed for the safety of their young lord. They found him in a strange mood. The news he had heard from the Ghost had been such a shock to Hamlet that for the moment he seemed quite unstrung, and, not having yet made up his mind how to act, he did not feel inclined to confide to his companions what he had just been told. He therefore put off their questionings with flippant speeches, and dismissed them in a somewhat summary fashion.

“How is it, my noble lord?” cried Marcellus.

“What news, my lord?” asked Horatio.

“Oh, wonderful!” said Hamlet.

“Good my lord, tell it,” said Horatio.

“No; you will reveal it.”

“Not I, my lord, by heaven!” said Horatio, and Marcellus added: “Nor I, my lord.”

“How say you then? Would heart of man once think it——But you’ll be secret?”

“Ay, by heaven, my lord!” cried Horatio and Marcellus together.

Hamlet lowered his voice to a tone of mysterious importance:

“There’s ne’er a villain dwelling in all Denmark but he’s an—arrant knave.”

“There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave to tell us this,” said Horatio, hurt at Hamlet’s lack of confidence.

“Why, right; you are in the right,” said Hamlet. “And so, without more circumstance at all, I hold it fit that we shake hands and part, you as your business and desire shall point you—for every man hath business and desire, such as it is—and, for my own poor part, look you, I’ll go pray.”

“These are but wild and whirling words, my lord,” said Horatio, justly aggrieved.

“I am sorry they offend you, heartily—yes, faith, heartily!”

“There’s no offence, my lord,” said Horatio, rather stiffly.

“Yes, by St. Patrick, but there is, Horatio, and much offence, too,” returned Hamlet, but it was of the wrong done by his uncle he was thinking. “Touching this vision here, it is an honest ghost, that let me tell you. For your desire to know what is between us, overmaster it as you may. And now, good friends, as you are friends, scholars, and soldiers, give me one poor request.”

“What is it, my lord? We will,” said Horatio.

“Never make known what you have seen to-night.”

“My lord, we will not.”

“Nay, but swear it; swear by my sword.”

And from underneath the ground sounded a solemn voice, “Swear!”

Twice again they shifted their places, and each time from beneath the ground came the hollow voice, “Swear!”

“O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!” marvelled Horatio.

“And therefore as a stranger give it welcome,” said Hamlet. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

Then he made them swear that never, however strange or odd he bore himself, as he perchance hereafter should think meet to put on an antic disposition—that never at such times, seeing him, were they by word or sign to show that they knew anything, or with meaning nods and smiles pretend they could explain his strange behaviour if they chose.

“Swear!” said the Ghost beneath.

“Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!” said Hamlet, and his companions took the oath demanded of them. “So, gentlemen, with all my love I do commend me to you; and what so poor a man as Hamlet is, may do to express his love and friending to you, God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together; and still your fingers on your lips, I pray. The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!—Nay, come, let us go together.”

Ophelia

The Lord Chamberlain to the Court of Denmark was an old man called Polonius, an ancient gray-bearded councillor, whose brain was stuffed with saws and proverbial sayings, and who had a very high opinion of his own sagacity. Polonius was ready to lay down the law on every occasion, and could always explain everything completely to his own satisfaction; the worldly wisdom of what he said was sometimes excellent, but his prosy moralising was often a severe tax on the patience of his hearers; in fact, he was not unfrequently what might be called “a tedious old bore.”

Polonius had two children—a handsome, fiery-natured son called Laertes, and a gentle, beautiful young daughter called Ophelia.

Like most young gallants in days of old, Laertes wished to see something of the world abroad, and directly the coronation was over, he begged permission to return to France, whence he had come to Denmark to show his duty to the new King. Hearing that Polonius had granted leave, though unwillingly, Claudius graciously gave his own consent, and Laertes prepared to depart at once.

Between Ophelia and the young Prince Hamlet a tender affection had grown up. As children, no doubt, they had been companions, for the boy Prince had no brothers or sisters of his own, though at school he had two friends of whom he was very fond, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. As Hamlet and Ophelia grew older this feeling became stronger. Their intimacy was watched with favour by Queen Gertrude, who dearly loved the gentle maiden, and wished nothing better than that she should become the wife of her son. So far, no definite engagement of marriage had taken place, but Hamlet was deeply attached to the young girl, and showed his affection by many gifts and words of love. As for Ophelia, her whole being was wrapt up in Hamlet. And small wonder, for peerless in grace and beauty, gallant in bearing as noble in nature, the young Prince shone forth far beyond any of his companions. As soldier, courtier, scholar, he was alike distinguished—ready in wit, skilled in manly exercises, highly accomplished, deeply thoughtful, studious in learning, a prince of courtesy, and an affectionate comrade. What marvel, then, that he had won for himself the absorbing love of a simple maiden like Ophelia, and the whole-hearted devotion of a loyal friend like Horatio?

Ophelia, in the quiet simplicity of her nature, accepted Hamlet’s love without question; but Laertes, with his larger experience of the world, was by no means confident that Hamlet intended anything serious, and on the eve of his departure for France he warned his sister not to place too much reliance on the young Prince’s favour. He bade her think of it as a fashion and a toy to amuse the passing hour—something sweet, but not lasting.

“No more but so?” said Ophelia wistfully.

“Think it no more,” counselled Laertes firmly. “Perhaps he loves you now, sincerely enough, but you must fear, weighing his greatness, his will is not his own; for he himself is subject to his birth. He may not, as unvalued persons do, choose for himself, for on his choice depends the safety and health of this whole State.”

Then, sensibly enough, Laertes pointed out that even if Hamlet truly loved her, reasons of state might prevent his ever marrying her, and therefore he begged his sister to be careful about bestowing her love too unguardedly on the Prince.

Poor Ophelia’s heart sank lower and lower at her brother’s words, but she meekly promised to remember his counsel. Then Polonius came in and gave some excellent parting words of advice to his son.

“Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well what I have said to you,” said Laertes, as he took his leave.

“What is it, Ophelia, he hath said to you?” asked Polonius.

“So please you, something touching the lord Hamlet.”

“Marry, well bethought,” said the old man; and then in his turn he proceeded to lecture his daughter on somewhat the same lines as Laertes had done.

In reply to his questions, Ophelia told him that Hamlet had lately made her many offerings of affection, and spoken many words of love. But, like Laertes, Polonius would not believe that Hamlet intended them seriously, or, at any rate, he pretended to think it only a passing fancy of the Prince’s. He ordered his daughter, therefore, to be more chary in seeing Hamlet—in fact, to avoid him as much as possible.

“I shall obey, my lord,” answered Ophelia dutifully.

It never seemed to occur to her to question her father’s will. She could love faithfully, but she could not struggle against opposition. So when the tempest came, she bent her head before it, like a frail reed, and was swept resistlessly away.

“Sweet Bells jangled, out of Tune and Harsh”

In accordance with her father’s injunctions, Ophelia now began to keep aloof from Hamlet; she sent no answers to his letters, and refused to see him. In the deeply-absorbing subject which had occupied Hamlet’s brain since the visit of the Ghost, it may be doubted whether he felt to the full this altered behaviour; but when all joy on earth seemed failing him, and nothing true or steadfast seemed left, it was perhaps an added pang that even the woman he loved should choose this moment to withdraw her sympathy and companionship. Hamlet had sworn to his father’s spirit henceforth to banish from his mind the remembrance of everything but revenge. His love for Ophelia, therefore, must take a secondary place; but he could not give it up so easily, though he made an attempt to do so. There was a constant struggle going on in his mind; his was the misery of one who has a harder task imposed on him than he has strength to carry out. He knew his duty, but he could not do it. He pondered and pondered over the matter, he reflected deeply over the problems and difficulties of life; he could think, and suffer, and plan, but he could not act. Time passed on, and still he had taken no decisive step. Day after day he saw the false, fawning smile of the traitor who had stolen his father’s crown. He knew himself to be thrust out of his own lawful place, a poor dependent on the will of the usurper, instead of enjoying his lawful rights as his father’s successor. But there was something in the sweet nobility of Hamlet which wrought its own downfall. A coarser, blunter nature that went straight to its mark, and either did not see, or did not trouble itself, about any side-issues, would have won its object; but Hamlet’s delicate, highly-strung spirit was not of the kind to command worldly success.

The perpetual trouble and perplexity in which he was plunged, and the bitter sense of his own irresolution, wrought a great change in the young Prince. Utterly out of sympathy with the whole Court of Denmark, and the better to conceal the workings of his mind, he adopted a strange mode of behaviour. He enjoyed the freedom this gave him of dispensing with the hypocrisy which was so prevalent at Court, and he took a half-bitter amusement in playing the part of one whose wits are wandering, and who is therefore privileged to indulge in wild and random speech. But at any instant he could lay aside this garb of eccentricity. With his old friends he was still the warm-hearted comrade, and to those in a lower position he was invariably a Prince of royal courtesy and kindness.

The King and Queen were much concerned at this change in Hamlet, and could not imagine what caused it, unless it were his father’s death. They sent in haste for two favourite friends of his boyhood to see if they could cheer him up with their company, and privately glean if there were anything afflicting him unknown to them. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern promised to do their best, and the Queen ordered them to be at once conducted to Hamlet.

In the meanwhile, old Polonius had solved the problem of Hamlet’s madness entirely to his own satisfaction, and he now came in triumph to impart his discovery to the King and Queen. It was, of course, quite impossible for him to tell his tale in a few words, but after an immense deal of beating round the bush, at last he came to the point. Briefly, it amounted to this: Hamlet had become mad because Ophelia had rejected his love. Oh, Polonius was quite certain about it, there was no doubt of the fact; and he carefully traced in detail all the various stages of Hamlet’s malady, which, it need scarcely be said, only existed in the old Chamberlain’s imagination. Polonius further produced as evidence a wild sort of letter that Hamlet had written to Ophelia, and was quite offended when the King and Queen seemed to hesitate a little in accepting his explanation of the problem.

“Hath there been such a time, I would fain know that, that I have positively said ‘’Tis so’ when it proved otherwise?”

“Not that I know,” said the King.

“Take this from this,” said Polonius, pointing to his head and shoulders, “if this be otherwise. If circumstances lead me, I will find where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed within the centre.”

“How may we try it further?” asked the King.

Polonius replied that Hamlet often walked for hours together in the lobby where they then were, and suggested that at such a time Ophelia should be sent to speak to him; he and the King, secretly hidden behind the arras, would watch the interview.

“If he love her not, and be not fallen from his reason because of it, let me be no assistant for a State, but keep a farm and carters,” concluded Polonius complacently.

“We will try it,” said the King.

“But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading,” said the Queen, as Hamlet himself entered the lobby at that moment, his eyes fixed on the open book he held in his hand.

“Away, I do beseech you—both away!” cried Polonius eagerly. “I will speak to him.—How does my good Lord Hamlet?” he added suavely, as Hamlet approached.

“Well, God have mercy!” said Hamlet, in a voice of vacant indifference.

“Do you know me, my lord?” said Polonius, still in the same coaxing tone.

The young Prince lifted his listless eyes from his book and surveyed the old man.

“Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.”

“Not I, my lord,” said Polonius, rather taken aback.

“Then I would you were so honest a man.”

“Honest, my lord?”

“Ay, sir! To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”

“That’s very true, my lord,” Polonius was forced to agree. He had not come off very well in this first encounter of wits, but he resolved to make a further attempt. Hamlet had now returned to his book. “What do you read, my lord?”

“Words—words—words,” said the young Prince wearily.

“What is the matter, my lord?”

“Between who?”

“I mean, the matter that you read, my lord?”

“Slanders, sir,” said Hamlet, looking full at him, and pretending to point to a passage in the book, “for the satirical rogue says here that old men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak limbs; all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, should be as old as I am—if like a crab you could go backward.”

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in it,” said Polonius aside. “Will you walk out of the air, my lord?”

“Into my grave.”

“Indeed, that is out of the air,” remarked Polonius struck by the wisdom of Hamlet’s replies. “Well, I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter. My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.”

“You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal,” said Hamlet, bowing low with exaggerated courtesy; then, as he turned away, the satire in his voice changed to a note of hopeless despair—“except my life—except my life—except my life,” he ended, with almost a groan.

“Fare you well, my lord,” said Polonius; and as he fussily took himself off, Hamlet muttered under his breath, “Those tedious old fools!”

Hamlet, for his own purpose, had chosen to amuse himself at the expense of the pompous old Chamberlain, but directly Rosencrantz and Guildenstern appeared he was again himself, and the warm-hearted friend of old days. He greeted them with the utmost cordiality, and nothing could have exceeded the gracious charm of his manner. If only they had met him with the same frank candour, all would have been well; but his quick penetration soon discovered from their expression that there was something in the background, and he presently made them confess that their visit to Elsinore had not been prompted solely by the desire to see Hamlet, but that they had been sent for by the King and Queen. When Hamlet won from them reluctantly this admission, his trust in them fled, and he determined to be on his guard with them. He told them he could tell why they had been sent for, and thus they need not fear betraying any secret of the King and Queen.

“I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises,” he said, “and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave, o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—no, nor woman either, though by your smiling you seem to say so.”

“My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts,” said Rosencrantz.

“Why did you laugh, then, when I said ‘Man delights not me’?”

Rosencrantz answered that he was only thinking, if Hamlet delighted not in man, what sorry entertainment the band of players would receive, whom they had overtaken on the way to Elsinore.

Hamlet replied that they would all be welcome, and asked what players they were.

“Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city,” answered Rosencrantz.

Hamlet’s interest was at once aroused, and he was discussing the subject of the players, and the reason why they were forced to travel, instead of keeping to their old position in the city, when a flourish of trumpets announced they had arrived. Before Rosencrantz and Guildenstern left him, Hamlet spoke a parting word to them.

“Gentlemen, you are welcome,” he said courteously. “Your hands, come then”—for they would merely have bowed respectfully. “You are welcome; but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.”

“In what, my dear lord?” asked Guildenstern.

“I am but mad north-north-west,” said Hamlet gravely: “when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

Hamlet’s speech may or may not have puzzled the young men to whom it was addressed, but, all the same, it was excellent good sense, and meant that he was in full possession of his faculties. His metaphor was taken from the old sport of hawking; the word “handsaw” is a local corruption for “heron.” The heron, when pursued, flew with the wind; therefore when the wind was from the north it flew towards the south; as the sun is in this quarter during the morning (when the sport generally took place), it would be difficult to distinguish the two birds when looking towards this dazzling light. On the other hand, when the wind was southerly, the heron flew towards the north, and, with his back to the sun, the spectator could easily tell which was the hawk and which was the heron.

By his speech, therefore, Hamlet meant to imply that his intelligence was just as keen as that of other people.

Old Polonius now entered in a state of great excitement to announce the arrival of the players. “The best actors in the world,” as he expressed it, “either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited; Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.”

“You are welcome, masters—welcome all,” said the young Prince, with his ready courtesy. “I am glad to see you well. Welcome, good friends.”

And for each one he had some kindly word of greeting and remembrance. Then he bade them give at once a specimen of their powers; and as a proof of the breadth of Hamlet’s nature, and the wideness of his sympathies, may be noted the fact that he was as much at home in discussing stage matters with the players as in musing over deep philosophies of life by himself. He recalled to their memory a play which had formerly struck his fancy, though it had never been acted, or, if it were, not above once, for it was too refined for the taste of the million—“caviare to the general,” as Hamlet expressed it. Hamlet himself recited a speech from this play with excellent taste and elocution, and the chief player continued the touching passage with much pathos.

Noting the effect that the player’s mimic passion had on the spectators, a sudden idea came to Hamlet, and when the other actors were dismissed, in the charge of the fussy Polonius, he kept back the first player to speak a few words to him.

“We’ll have a play to-morrow,” he said. “Dost thou hear me, old friend: can you play the Murder of Gonzago?”

“Ay, my lord.”

“We’ll have it to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in it, could you not?”

“Ay, my lord.”

“Very well. Follow that lord, and, look you, mock him not,” said Hamlet, sending him to rejoin his companions.

Left alone, a bitter feeling of disgust at his own weakness and irresolution seized Hamlet. The sight of this actor’s passion and despair over the fate of an entirely imaginary person made him realise his own lack of duty with regard to his father. Here was a King who had been most cruelly murdered, and his son did nothing to avenge his loss, but, like John-a-dreams, idle of his cause—a dull, spiritless rascal—he simply wasted his time in brooding, and said nothing. His wrath against his uncle blazed up again with sudden fury, and all his thoughts turned to vengeance. But he checked his exclamations to plan practical measures.

“About, my brain! Hum!—I have heard that guilty creatures, sitting at a play, have by the very cunning of the scene been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaimed their ill deeds; for murder, though it have no tongue, will speak in most miraculous fashion. I’ll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle; I’ll observe his looks; I’ll tent him to the quick; if he but blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen may be the devil; and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape. I’ll have grounds more relative than this,” concluded Hamlet, touching the tablets on which he had inscribed the message from the Ghost. “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”

“The Mouse-trap”

Next day, in accordance with their scheme, the King and Polonius hid themselves behind the arras, to listen to the interview between Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet, as usual, was meditating deeply on the problems of life, when Ophelia approached, and offered to restore to him some gifts which he had given her in happier days.

In the sudden tragedy which had overwhelmed Hamlet’s whole being, his love for Ophelia seemed something very far away, but the old tenderness was always struggling to assert itself. He tried, however, to force it down, and even assumed an air of harsh indifference which almost broke Ophelia’s heart. In apparently wild and rambling words, but really deeply penetrated with pity, he gave her to understand that all thoughts of marriage between them must now be over, and bade the young girl get to a nunnery, and that quickly, too. The hollowness and hypocrisy that he saw all around him goaded his spirit almost beyond endurance, and now another blow to his belief in human nature was to be struck.

When Polonius hid himself behind the arras it is doubtful whether Ophelia knew he was there, or, in the excitement of the moment, she may possibly have forgotten the fact. Anyhow, when Hamlet suddenly asked her, “Where’s your father?” she answered, “At home, my lord.” But her reply filled Hamlet with fresh scorn for the apparent insincerity of this innocent young girl. He had seen the arras stir, and Polonius’s old gray head peep out; he naturally thought that Ophelia was in league with the rest of the world to spy upon him and deceive him.

“Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house,” he said, in clear, cutting accents, when he heard Ophelia’s response. “Farewell!”

“Oh, help him, you sweet heavens!” murmured Ophelia.

It seemed quite evident to her that the unfortunate young Prince had lost his reason.

“If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry,” cried Hamlet wildly: “be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go; farewell!”

“O heavenly powers, restore him!” prayed Ophelia again.

“I have heard of your paintings, too, well enough,” continued Hamlet, with increasing violence. “God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another; you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God’s creatures. Go to, I’ll no more on it; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages; those that are married already—all but one”—here he looked darkly towards the arras, where he knew the King was concealed with Polonius—“shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go!”

And with a furious gesture of dismissal Hamlet hurried from the room.

“Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!” sighed Ophelia piteously. ”The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s eye, tongue, sword; the expectancy and rose of the fair state, the glass of fashion, and the mould of form, the observed of all observers quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, that sucked the honey of his music vows, now see that noble and most sovereign reason, like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh! Oh, woe is me, to have seen what I have seen, see what I see!”

While Ophelia was musing thus sadly, the King and Polonius stepped from their hiding-place. The King was not at all satisfied that Polonius was right in his surmise that Hamlet had lost his reason because of Ophelia’s rejected love.

“Love! His affections do not tend that way,” he said decidedly. “Nor was what he spoke, though it lacked form a little, like madness. There is something in his soul over which his melancholy sits brooding, and I fear the result will be some danger. To prevent this, I have determined that he shall depart with speed for England, to demand there our neglected tribute. Haply the sea and the sight of foreign countries will expel this settled matter in his heart, about which his brains, always beating, makes him thus unlike himself.”

Polonius agreed that it would be a good plan to send Hamlet to England, though he would not give up his idea that the origin and commencement of Hamlet’s grief sprang from neglected love. He further suggested that after the play the Queen should have an interview alone with Hamlet, and try to get from him the cause of his grief, and that Polonius himself should be placed where he could hear their conference.

“If the Queen cannot discover the cause, send him to England, or confine him where your wisdom shall think best,” he concluded.

“It shall be so,” declared the King. “Madness in great ones must not go unwatched.”

---

The play on which so much depended was now to be performed. Hamlet had inserted some speeches of his own, and before the performance began he gave some excellent advice to the players on the art of acting. While they were making ready, Hamlet had a few private words with Horatio. In the midst of the trouble and turmoil of his own soul, his fretted spirit turned with deep affection to the quiet strength of this faithful friend.

“Give me that man that is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him in my heart’s core—ay, in my heart of heart, as I do thee,” he said tenderly to Horatio.

He had already confided to him what the Ghost had related, and now he told him that he had laid a trap to discover if what it said were true; one scene in the play was to represent closely the circumstances of his father’s death, and he begged Horatio, when that act came, to observe the King with all the power of his soul. If his guilt did not reveal itself at one speech, then the Ghost must have spoken falsely, and Hamlet’s own imagination was black and wicked.

“Give him heedful note,” he said, “for I will rivet my eyes to his face, and afterwards we will compare our impressions in judging his appearance.”

“Well, my lord, if he steal anything whilst this play is playing, and escape detection, I will pay the theft,” said Horatio, meaning by this that his watch would never waver.

“They are coming to the play; I must be idle. Get you a place,” said Hamlet.

The music of the Danish royal march was heard, there was a flourish of trumpets, and, attended by the full Court, the King and Queen entered the great hall of the castle. Old Polonius marshalled them, bowing backwards before them; Ophelia followed in the train of the Queen; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, with other attendant lords, were there, and guards carried torches to light up the scene. The King and Queen took their seats on thrones provided for them at one side of the stage; Ophelia sat in a chair opposite; Horatio took up his stand at the back of Ophelia’s chair, where, unnoticed himself, he could watch the King’s face; and Hamlet, who on their entrance had immediately assumed his air of madness, flung himself on the ground at Ophelia’s feet.

The play began. First the scene was given in dumb show. It represented a King and Queen who were apparently very affectionate together. Presently the King lay down on a bank of flowers, and the Queen, seeing him asleep, left him. Soon another man came in, who took off the King’s crown, kissed it, poured poison into the sleeper’s ear, and went off. The Queen returned, found the King dead, and showed passionate signs of grief. The poisoner came back, seemed to lament with her; the body of the dead King was carried away. Then the poisoner wooed the Queen with gifts. She seemed for a while loath and unwilling, but in the end accepted his love.

Claudius at the sight of this scene betrayed many signs of secret uneasiness, but he made no open remark, and the other spectators were too intent on the play to notice him. Only Horatio, from his place opposite, kept careful watch, and Hamlet, lying on the ground, quivering with excitement, never took his eyes from the guilty man’s face. The Queen and Ophelia looked on with rather languid interest.

“What means this, my lord?” asked Ophelia, when the dumb show had come to an end.

“Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief,” said Hamlet.

“Belike this show imports the argument of the play,” said Ophelia, which indeed proved to be the case.

Now the real players came on, who had to speak, and the action followed the same lines as the dumb show, the player Queen pouring forth boundless expressions of devotion to her husband.

“Madam, how like you this play?” asked Hamlet presently, when a pause occurred.

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” said the Queen.

“Oh, but she’ll keep her word,” said Hamlet, with biting sarcasm.

“Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in it?” asked the King uneasily.

“No, no; they do but jest—poison in jest; no offence in the world,” returned Hamlet, looking at him with strange malice in his eyes.

The King winced, but tried to appear unconcerned.

“What do you call the play?”

“‘The Mouse-trap.’ Marry, how? Tropically,” continued Hamlet, still in the same wild manner. “This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna; Gonzago is the Duke’s name, his wife Baptista. You shall see anon. ’Tis a knavish piece of work; but what of that? Your Majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not; let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.”

The King grew more and more disturbed; he cast uneasy glances at the play, made a half-movement to rise, and checked himself. As the play went on, Hamlet could scarcely control his excitement. The players were now reciting the speeches he had written; the young Prince muttered the words with them in a rapid undertone. When one of the characters poured the poison into the player King’s ear, Hamlet burst out again into fierce speech, his voice rising shriller and higher.

“He poisons him in the garden for his estate. His name’s Gonzago. The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.”

Hamlet, in his excitement, had dragged himself across the floor till he was at the foot of the throne. The King, seeing the mimic representation of his own crime, started up in guilty terror.

“The King rises!” exclaimed Ophelia.

“What! Frighted with false fire!” shouted Hamlet in bitter derision, and with a harsh cry of triumph he sprang to his feet, and flung himself into the throne which the King had left vacant.

All was now confusion; the King and Queen hurriedly retired; their courtiers thronged after them, and Hamlet and Horatio were left alone in the deserted hall. Hamlet broke into a wild snatch of song:

“O good Horatio, I’ll take the Ghost’s word for a thousand pounds. Didst perceive?”

“Very well, my lord.”

“Upon the talk of the poisoning?”

“I did very well note him.”

It was not likely that Hamlet’s behaviour would be let pass without remark, and presently the two obsequious courtiers, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, came to summon him to the presence of the Queen. They brought word that the King was in his own room, marvellously upset with rage, and that the Queen, in great affliction of spirit, had sent them to say to Hamlet that his behaviour had struck her into amazement and astonishment, and that she desired to speak with him in her room before he went to bed.

Hamlet replied he would obey, but on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s further attempting to discover from him the cause of his strange behaviour, he retorted by asking the two young men what they meant by treating him in the way they did, which was as if they were trying to drive him into some snare.

“O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly,” answered Guildenstern.

“I do not well understand that,” said Hamlet; and it may be doubted if the speaker himself knew what he meant by his silly words.

But the young Prince determined to give the couple a lesson, and show them he was not quite the witless creature they seemed to imagine. A few minutes before he had called for music, and ordered some recorders to be brought. The recorder was a small musical instrument something like a flute. On the attendant’s bringing them, Hamlet took one and held it out to Guildenstern.

“Will you play upon this pipe?” he asked him courteously.

“My lord, I cannot.”

“I pray you,” he begged.

“Believe me, I cannot.”

“I do beseech you.”

“I know no touch of it, my lord.”

“’Tis as easy as lying,” said Hamlet. “Govern these holes with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.”

“But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill,” declared Guildenstern.

“Why, look you, how unworthy a thing you would make of me!” said Hamlet, his persuasive voice changing to sudden sternness. “You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ, yet you cannot make it speak. Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?—Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.”

The pipe snapped in his slender fingers, as he tossed it contemptuously away, and the two young men stood crestfallen and abashed before his noble scorn.

---

It was no repentant and shamefaced son that entered the Queen’s room that night. Hamlet had steeled his heart to do what he considered his duty, and tell his mother the truth. He would speak daggers, though he used none; he would reveal to her the true character of the man she had taken for her second husband. When, therefore, the Queen, in accordance with Polonius’s advice, began to take him roundly to task for his strange behaviour, he retorted in such a strange, and even menacing, manner that she was quite alarmed, and shouted for help. Polonius, hidden behind the arras, echoed her cry. Hamlet, thinking it was the King, and that the hour for vengeance had come, drew his sword.

“How now! A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!” he exclaimed, and made a pass through the arras.

There was a cry from behind, “O, I am slain!” and the fall of a heavy body.

“O me, what hast thou done?” exclaimed the Queen.

“Nay, I know not. Is it—the King?” said Hamlet, in a harsh whisper.

“Oh, what a rash and bloody deed is this!” moaned the Queen, wringing her hands in dismay.

“A bloody deed! Almost as bad, good mother, as kill a King and marry with his brother,” said Hamlet solemnly.

“As kill a King?” echoed the Queen, astounded.

“Ay, lady, it was my word.”

Hamlet lifted the arras, and found that, after all, it was not the guilty murderer whom he had hoped to punish, but the meddlesome old Chamberlain, who had fallen a victim to his sudden impulse. His task of vengeance had still to be accomplished.

“Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell,” said the young Prince, gazing at him sorrowfully. “I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune! Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.”

Thus the officious old man’s prying ways met their punishment. And Hamlet’s lack of resolution, too, brought its penalty; for if he had had strength of will to carry out what he believed to be his duty, he would not have thus trusted to the blind impulse of the moment, and a comparatively innocent life would not have been sacrificed.

But he had matters too important waiting to spare much time for regret. Letting the arras fall on the henceforth silent prattler, Hamlet turned to his mother. In the most forcible manner he pointed out to the Queen how blameworthy had been her conduct. In vivid language he sketched a portrait of her two husbands, showing how noble had been the one brother, and how contemptible was the other. What strange delusion could have cheated the Queen, after knowing her first husband, to have married such a wretched being as Claudius?

“O Hamlet, speak no more!” implored the Queen. “These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears; no more, sweet Hamlet.”

“A murderer and a villain!” continued Hamlet, with increasing scorn and vehemence; “a slave that is not the twentieth part the tithe of your former lord; a buffoon king; a cutpurse of the empire and the sceptre, who from the shelf the precious diadem stole, and put it in his pocket!”

“No more!” besought the Queen.

“A king of shreds and patches——”

Hamlet’s torrent of wrath died on his lips. Before him stood once more the spirit of his father, gazing at him with calm, rebuking eyes.

“Save me, and hover o’er me with your wings, you heavenly guards!” murmured the young Prince, in an awestruck whisper. “What would your gracious figure?”

The vision, apparent to Hamlet, was not visible to the Queen. She only saw the sudden change that had come to her son, and the rapt look on his face.

“Alas, he’s mad!” she sighed.

“Do you not come your tardy son to chide?” continued Hamlet, still in the same hushed voice, “who, lost in time and passion, lets go by the important acting of thy dread command? Oh, say!”

The Ghost replied that his visit was indeed to whet his son’s almost blunted purpose. But now he bade Hamlet note how startled and amazed the Queen was, and told him to speak to her and soothe her.

“How is it with you, lady?” said Hamlet absently.

“Alas! how is it with you?” retorted the Queen, for to her it seemed that Hamlet was looking at vacancy, and holding converse with the empty air. “Whereon do you look?”

“On him—on him! Look you, how pale he glares!... Do you see nothing there?”

“Nothing at all; yet all that is, I see.”

“Nor did you nothing hear?”

“No, nothing but ourselves.”

“Why, look you there! Look how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he lived! Look where he goes, even now, out at the portal.”

The Queen saw nothing of the figure gliding away, and told Hamlet that it must be the coinage of his brain, the sort of delusion which madness was very cunning in.

“Madness!” echoed Hamlet; and he bade his mother note that his pulse beat as calmly as her own, and that it was not madness which he uttered. Bring him to the test, he said, and he would re-word the matter, which madness could not do. In short, his words were so convincing that the Queen could no longer refuse to believe them. Before they parted, she promised to adopt a very different mode of behaviour from her usual pleasure-loving frivolity, and not to allow herself to be persuaded by the crafty Claudius that anything her son might say or do arose from madness.

[Pg 320]
[Pg 321]

“I must to England; you know that?” asked Hamlet.

“Alack, I had forgotten; it is so arranged,” said the Queen.

“There are letters sealed,” said Hamlet, “and my two schoolfellows, whom I will trust as I will adders fanged—they bear the mandate. Let the knavery work; for ’tis sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard, and it shall go hard but I will delve one yard below their mines, and blow them at the moon.”

“Rosemary for Remembrance”

Hamlet’s suspicions with regard to fresh villainy on the part of the King were justified. Claudius dared not do any harm to the young Prince in his own country, for he was greatly beloved by the people. On the plea, therefore, that it was for the benefit of his health, he was despatched to England, but letters were given to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who accompanied him, commanding that on his arrival the Prince should be instantly beheaded.

Suspecting treachery, Hamlet managed to get possession of these letters, and in their place he put others, written by himself, in which the English Government was begged, as a favour to Denmark, to put the bearers to death. Thus Rosencrantz and Guildenstern fell victims to their own treachery, and met the fate to which they were shamelessly conducting their old schoolfellow.

The day after the changing of the letters their ship was chased by pirates. Finding they were too slow of sail to escape, they made a valiant resistance. In the grapple Hamlet boarded the pirates’ vessel. At that very instant the ships got clear, so he alone became their prisoner. They treated him well, knowing who he was, and expecting to get a good reward, and not long after he had left Denmark Hamlet again set foot in his own country. He did not at first announce his return to the King and Queen, but sent a message privately to Horatio, who at once hastened to him.

During his absence from Denmark a sad thing had happened. Poor Ophelia, overwhelmed by all the sorrows that had fallen on her, had lost her reason. Hamlet’s strange behaviour had been the first shock, and on her father’s sudden death, and Hamlet’s departure for England, the slender strength snapped utterly, and the young girl was carried away in the full flood of calamity.

Ever sweet and gentle, as she had been all her life, Ophelia was so still; there was no violence or malice in her malady. She was indeed distracted with grief, and spoke strange words, but when allowed her own way she went harmlessly about, only decking herself with flowers, and singing sweet and touching snatches of quaint old songs.

The King and Queen were deeply grieved at this new misfortune that had fallen on their young favourite, for the Queen, at least, loved her tenderly. They had also grounds for uneasiness concerning themselves; disquieting rumours began to be current. Rather foolishly, they had tried to hush up the cause of Polonius’s death, and had had him hurriedly interred, without proper rites or ceremony. His son Laertes had come secretly from France, and tittle-tattlers were not lacking to pour into his ears malicious reports of his father’s death. Finally, there was an attempt at insurrection. Laertes went to the palace, followed by a riotous mob, shouting, “Laertes shall be King! Laertes King!” They broke down the doors, overcame the guard, and Laertes forced his way into the presence of the King and Queen.

“O thou vile King, give me my father!” he demanded, with menacing gesture.

“Calmly, good Laertes,” implored the Queen, while the King, with all the subtle art in which he was so skilled, tried to soothe the infuriated young man, and asked him why he was so incensed.

“How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with,” cried Laertes fiercely, flinging off all semblance of allegiance. “Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenged most thoroughly for my father.”

“Who shall stay you?” asked the King mildly.

“My will, not all the world!” retorted Laertes roughly. “And for my means, I’ll husband them so well, they shall go far with little.”

The King was just explaining that he was in no sense guilty of Polonius’s death, when there was a stir at the door, and the next moment Ophelia entered. At the sight of the beautiful young maiden, in her simple white robe, her long yellow locks floating free on her shoulders, her sweet blue eyes opened wide in vacant gaze, a sudden check came to the young man’s violence.

“O rose of May! Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!” he murmured, with tenderest pity. “Oh heavens! is it possible a young maid’s wits should be as mortal as an old man’s life?”

Ophelia carried flowers in her hand, and she came in singing and talking to herself.

“Fare you well, my dove.”

“Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, it could not move thus,” said Laertes.

Ophelia now began to distribute the flowers she held in her hand. First she gave some to her brother.

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.”

“A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted,” said Laertes.

“There’s fennel for you, and columbines,” said Ophelia to the King, (fennel is an emblem of flattery, and columbines of thanklessness). “There’s rue for you,” to the Queen, “and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace on Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy; I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died; they say he made a good end,—

“Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, she turns to favour and to prettiness,” said Laertes, as smiling, and kissing her hand, the poor wit-bereft maiden went singing on her way.

His desire for vengeance was redoubled, and he resolved that his sister’s madness should be dearly paid for. He therefore lent a ready ear when the King declared that the blame of everything that had happened was due to Hamlet, explaining that he had been unable to punish him up to the present, owing to the intense love borne him by his mother, and all the people. Even as they were talking arrived a letter from Hamlet himself; it ran thus:

“High and Mighty,

“You shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden and more strange return.

“Hamlet.”

Hamlet’s return happened most aptly, and the King immediately suggested a plan whereby Laertes could gratify his vengeance without fear of being found out. While Laertes had been in France, he had been greatly talked about for his skill in fencing, and a Norman gentleman who had come to the Danish Court brought a marvellous report of his prowess in the use of the rapier. This account filled Hamlet with envy; he was himself a master in the art of fencing, and he longed for Laertes to come back and try a match with him. The King now proposed that Laertes should challenge Hamlet to a trial of skill.

“He, being heedless, most generous and free from all contriving, will not look closely at the foils,” continued the King cunningly, “so that with ease, or with a little shuffling, you may choose a sword unbated, and in a pass of practice requite him for your father.”

Laertes not only consented to this dastardly scheme,—he went a step further, and declared that he would anoint the point of the rapier with some poison so mortal that no remedy in all the world could save from death the thing that was but scratched with it. He would touch the point of this sword with this poison, so that if he wounded Hamlet ever so slightly it would be death. In addition to this, in case Hamlet should escape unhurt from the fencing, the King said he would have a chalice near with poisoned wine, so that if he grew thirsty, and called for drink, he would meet his death in that manner.

Their further plotting was interrupted by the Queen, who came hurrying in with further tidings of woe. Ophelia was drowned.

“Drowned! Oh, where?” cried Laertes.

“There is a willow grows aslant a brook that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream,” began the Queen; and she told how Ophelia, having woven many fantastic garlands of wild flowers, had clambered into this tree, to hang her wreaths on the drooping boughs, when a branch broke, and Ophelia and her trophies fell into the brook. There for awhile her clothes bore her up, and she floated down the current, still singing snatches of old tunes; but before she could be rescued, the weight of her garments, heavy with the water, dragged her down to death.

Laertes could not restrain his tears when he heard of the loss of his dear sister, but the King guessed that his rage would soon start up with fresh fury, and he resolved not to lose sight of the young man till his scheme of vengeance was accomplished.

The King’s Wager

In the churchyard at Elsinore two men were digging a grave. As they worked they talked, and the elder one expounded the law to his young assistant. The former asked if the person for whom they were digging the grave was to be buried in Christian burial.

“I tell thee she is,” said the second man, “and therefore make her grave straight; the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.”

“How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?” argued the first grave-digger.

“Why, ’tis found so,” answered the second.

“Here lies the point,” persisted the first, who dearly loved an argument. “If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act, and an act hath three branches—it is to act, to do, and to perform; argal, she drowned herself unwittingly.”

“Nay, but hear you, good man delver——”

“Give me leave,” interposed the other, with his air of superiority. “Here lies the water—good; here stands the man—good; if the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes—mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself; argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.”

“But is this law?” asked the second rustic, rubbing his bewildered pate.

“Ay, marry, is it; crowner’s quest law,” returned the other decisively.

Having sufficiently impressed his companion by his display of superior knowledge, the first grave-digger despatched him for “a stoup of liquor,” and continued his toil alone, singing to himself as he did so.

Two newcomers had in the meanwhile entered the churchyard. These were Hamlet and Horatio. Hamlet was struck by the utter insensibility of the man, who callously pursued his mournful task, and shovelled earth and human bones alike aside with the most complete indifference. To Hamlet the sight of these poor human remains awakened many reflections, and, in his usual fashion, he began to ponder over them, and speculate what had formerly been the destiny—possibly a brilliant and distinguished one—of the skulls which were now knocked about so disrespectfully. Presently he spoke to the man, and asked whose grave he was digging, and with the exercise of much patient good-humour was at last able to extract the information that it was for “one that was a woman, but, rest her soul, she’s dead.”

“How long have you been a grave-digger?” was his next question.

“Of all the days in the year, I came to it that day that our last King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.”

“How long is that since?”

“Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that,” was the civil answer. “It was the very day young Hamlet was born—he that is mad, and sent into England.”

“Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?” inquired Hamlet.

“Why, because he was mad; he shall recover his wits there; or if he do not, it’s no great matter there.”

“Why?”

“It will not be seen in him there, there the men are as mad as he.”

“How came he mad?”

“Very strangely, they say.”

“How ‘strangely’?”

“Faith, e’en with losing his wits.”

“Upon what ground?”

“Why, here in Denmark,” said the rustic, misunderstanding the question. “I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.”

He next threw up with his spade a skull, which he said had been that of Yorick, the King’s jester.

“Let me see,” said Hamlet, taking it gently into his hands. “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times. Here hung the lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your jibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.”

Hamlet’s meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the funeral procession, which now entered the churchyard. After the bier walked Laertes, as chief mourner, and the King and Queen followed, with their attendants. Hamlet and Horatio, who had retired on the approach of the mourners, did not at first know who was about to be buried, but when the bier was lowered into the grave, Hamlet knew from the words spoken by Laertes that it was no other than the fair Ophelia.

“Sweets to the sweet: farewell!” said the Queen, scattering flowers. “I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, and not have strewed thy grave.”

“Hold off the earth awhile, till I have caught her once more in my arms,” cried Laertes; and, leaping into the grave, he shouted wildly to them to pile their dust on the living and the dead.

“What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis?” cried Hamlet, coming forward. “This is I, Hamlet the Dane.” And he, too, leaped into the grave.

At the sight of the young Prince, all Laertes’s wrath blazed up in full fury. He sprang on him, and grappled with him, almost throttling him. Hamlet, thus attacked, bade Laertes hold off his hand, for though not hot-tempered and rash, yet he had something dangerous in him which it would be wise to fear. The attendants parted the incensed young men, and they came out of the grave, but they still regarded each other with looks of defiance.

“Why, I will fight with him upon this theme, until my eyelids will no longer wag,” said Hamlet.

“O my son, what theme?” asked the Queen.

“I loved Ophelia,” said Hamlet; “forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.”

In Laertes’s own style of exaggeration, Hamlet hurled forth a fiery challenge, and then, with sudden self-contempt, he ended in half-sad irony:

“Nay, an thou’lt mouth, I’ll rant as well as thou.”

The next day Hamlet and Horatio were walking in the hall of the castle, when a very elegant and affected young Danish nobleman approached, and, with many bows and flourishes, delivered his message, which was a challenge from Laertes to a fencing match. The King had laid a heavy wager on Hamlet—six Barbary horses against six French rapiers and poniards, that in a dozen passes Laertes would not exceed Hamlet three hits.

“Sir, I will walk here in the hall,” answered Hamlet; “if it please his Majesty, it is the breathing-time of day with me. Let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing; if the King hold his purpose, I will win for him if I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.”

“You will lose this wager, my lord,” said Horatio, when young Osric, with a final sweeping bow of his plumed cap, had retired.

“I do not think so,” said Hamlet. “Since he went into France I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds.—But thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart; but it is no matter.”

“Nay, good my lord——”

“It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving as would perhaps trouble a woman.”

“If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will go and tell them you are not fit.”

“Not a whit; we defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is it to leave betimes? Let be.”

Now entered the King and Queen, Laertes, Osric, and other lords; attendants with foils and gauntlets; and servants carrying a table with flagons of wine on it.

“Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me,” said the King, putting Laertes’s hand into Hamlet’s.

With his customary sweetness of disposition, Hamlet courteously apologised to Laertes for any wrong he might have done him, saying that it was only due to the excitement of the moment. Laertes accepted his offered friendship, but with little grace. Then the foils were brought, and while Hamlet, utterly unsuspicious, made his choice, Laertes, with some shuffling, managed to secure the foil he wanted, with the button off, and anointed its point with venom.

The King ordered the goblets of wine to be set in readiness, and commanded that if Hamlet gave the first or second hit a salute should be fired from the guns on the battlements. Then, with hypocritical friendliness, he pretended, in honour of Hamlet, to drop a pearl of great value into the goblet, but it was in reality some deadly poison.

At first the fencers seemed pretty evenly matched, but Hamlet secured the first hit. The King drank to his health, the trumpets sounded, and cannon were fired outside. The King sent a little page with the cup of wine to Hamlet, but the Prince said he would play the next bout first, and bade the boy set it by awhile. Again they played.

“Another hit! What say you?” Hamlet appealed to the judges.

“A touch, a touch, I do confess,” agreed Laertes.

“Our son shall win,” said the deceitful King.

“The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet,” said his mother.

“Gertrude, do not drink,” said the King, but it was too late; before Claudius could prevent her, she had lifted to her lips the cup of poisoned wine, which the little page had placed on a table beside her.

The third bout of fencing began, and this time it was more vigorous than before, for Hamlet reproached Laertes for not putting forth his full powers. A feeling of shame had doubtless hitherto restrained Laertes, and he felt that what he was going to do was almost against his conscience. Nevertheless, he now thrust in good earnest. He wounded Hamlet, but in the scuffle his rapier flew out of his hand. Hamlet tossed his own weapon to Laertes, and picked up the poisoned one which had fallen to the ground. The struggle was resumed, and this time Hamlet wounded Laertes. The match begun in play was becoming serious.

“Part them; they are incensed!” cried the King.

“Nay, come again,” said Hamlet.

“Look to the Queen there, ho!” called out Osric, for at that moment she fell back, half unconscious.

“They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?” asked Horatio of Hamlet.

“How is it, Laertes?” asked Osric.

“Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric; I am justly punished with mine own treachery.”

“How does the Queen?” asked Hamlet.

“She swoons to see them bleed,” said the King, anxious to cover up the cause of her death.

“No, no, the drink, the drink!” gasped the Queen, “O my dear Hamlet—the drink, the drink! I am poisoned!”

“O, villainy! Ho! let the door be locked! Treachery! Seek it out,” cried Hamlet.

Laertes, on the point of death, confessed the whole plot, and Hamlet, stung at last to vengeance, stabbed the wicked King with Laertes’s poisoned weapon, which he held in his hand.

“He is justly served,” said Laertes. “Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet. Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee, nor thine on me.”

“Heaven make thee free of it!” said Hamlet, as the young man fell back motionless. “I follow thee. I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu!”

Horatio, feeling that he no longer cared to live, seized the cup, and would have drunk off what was left of the poisoned wine, but with a last effort of failing strength, Hamlet wrenched the cup out of his hands, and dashed it to the ground.

Far off in the distance was heard the music of a triumphant march, and learning that it was the youthful Fortinbras, returning with conquest from Poland, Hamlet prophesied that he would be elected as the new King, and gave his dying voice for him as his successor. Then murmuring, “The rest is silence,” the young Prince sank quietly back, with a smile of unearthly radiance on his face, and at last the storm-tossed spirit was at peace.

“Now cracks a noble heart,” said Horatio in loving farewell. “Good-night, sweet Prince; and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!”