Hamlet
On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. Discovered
first by a pair of watchmen, then by the scholar Horatio, the ghost resembles the recently
deceased King Hamlet, whose brother Claudius has inherited the throne and married the
king’s widow, Queen Gertrude. When Horatio and the watchmen bring Prince Hamlet, the son
of Gertrude and the dead king, to see the ghost, it speaks to him, declaring ominously that it is
indeed his father’s spirit, and that he was murdered by none other than Claudius. Ordering
Hamlet to seek revenge on the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost
disappears with the dawn (alba).
Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father’s death, but, because he is contemplative
and thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent
madness. Claudius and Gertrude worry about the prince’s erratic behaviour and attempt to
discover its cause. They employ a pair of Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to
watch him. When Polonius, the pompous Lord Chamberlain, suggests that Hamlet may be mad
with love for his daughter, Ophelia, Claudius agrees to spy on Hamlet in conversation with the
girl. But though Hamlet certainly seems mad, he does not seem to love Ophelia: he orders her
to enter a nunnery and declares that he wishes to ban marriages.
A group of traveling actors comes to Elsinore, and Hamlet seizes upon an idea to test his
uncle’s guilt. He will have the players perform a scene closely resembling the sequence by
which Hamlet imagines his uncle to have murdered his father, so that if Claudius is guilty, he
will surely react. When the moment of the murder arrives in the theatre, Claudius leaps up
and leaves the room. Hamlet and Horatio agree that this proves his guilt. Hamlet goes to kill
Claudius but finds him praying. Since he believes that killing Claudius while in prayer would
send Claudius’s soul to heaven, Hamlet considers that it would be an inadequate revenge and
decides to wait. Claudius, now frightened of Hamlet’s madness and fearing for his own safety,
orders that Hamlet be sent to England at once.
Hamlet goes to confront his mother, in whose bedchamber Polonius has hidden behind a
tapestry. Hearing a noise from behind the tapestry, Hamlet believes the king is hiding there.
He draws his sword and stabs through the fabric, killing Polonius. For this crime, he is
immediately dispatched to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. However, Claudius’s
plan for Hamlet includes more than banishment, as he has given Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern sealed orders for the King of England demanding that Hamlet be put to death.
In the aftermath of her father’s death, Ophelia goes mad with grief and drowns in the river.
Polonius’s son, Laertes, who has been staying in France, returns to Denmark in a rage.
Claudius convinces him that Hamlet is to blame for his father’s and sister’s deaths. When
Horatio and the king receive letters from Hamlet indicating that the prince has returned to
Denmark after pirates attacked his ship in route to England, Claudius concocts a plan to use
Laertes’ desire for revenge to secure Hamlet’s death. Laertes will fence with Hamlet in
innocent sport, but Claudius will poison Laertes’ blade so that if he draws blood, Hamlet will
die. As a backup plan, the king decides to poison a goblet (coppa), which he will give Hamlet to
drink should Hamlet score the first or second hits of the match. Hamlet returns to the vicinity
of Elsinore just as Ophelia’s funeral is taking place. Stricken with grief, he attacks Laertes and
declares that he had in fact always loved Ophelia. Back at the castle, he tells Horatio that he
believes one must be prepared to die, since death can come at any moment. A foolish courtier
