HAMLET was the only son of the King of Denmark.
He loved his father and mother dearly—and
was happy in the love of a sweet lady named
Ophelia. Her father, Polonius, was the King's
Chamberlain.
While Hamlet was away studying at Wittenberg,
his father died. Young Hamlet hastened home
in great grief to hear that a serpent had
stung the King, and that he was dead. The
young Prince had loved his father so tenderly
that you may judge what he felt when he found
that the Queen, before yet the King had been
laid in the ground a month, had determined
to marry again—and to marry the dead King's
brother.
Hamlet refused to put off mourning for the
wedding.
"It is not only the black I wear on my body,"
he said, "that proves my loss. I wear mourning
in my heart for my dead father. His son at
least remembers him, and grieves still."
Then said Claudius the King's brother, "This
grief is unreasonable. Of course you must
sorrow at the loss of your father, but—"
"Ah," said Hamlet, bitterly, "I cannot in
one little month forget those I love."
With that the Queen and Claudius left him,
to make merry over their wedding, forgetting
the poor good King who had been so kind to
them both.
And Hamlet, left alone, began to wonder and
to question as to what he ought to do. For
he could not believe the story about the snake-bite.
It seemed to him all too plain that the wicked
Claudius had killed the King, so as to get
the crown and marry the Queen. Yet he had
no proof, and could not accuse Claudius.
And while he was thus thinking came Horatio,
a fellow student of his, from Wittenberg.
"What brought you here?" asked Hamlet, when
he had greeted his friend kindly.
"I came, my lord, to see your father's funeral."
"I think it was to see my mother's wedding,"
said Hamlet, bitterly. "My father! We shall
not look upon his like again."
"My lord," answered Horatio, "I think I saw
him yesternight."
Then, while Hamlet listened in surprise, Horatio
told how he, with two gentlemen of the guard,
had seen the King's ghost on the battlements.
Hamlet went that night, and true enough, at
midnight, the ghost of the King, in the armor
he had been wont to wear, appeared on the
battlements in the chill moonlight. Hamlet
was a brave youth. Instead of running away
from the ghost he spoke to it—and when it
beckoned him he followed it to a quiet place,
and there the ghost told him that what he
had suspected was true. The wicked Claudius
had indeed killed his good brother the King,
by dropping poison into his ear as he slept
in his orchard in the afternoon.
"And you," said the ghost, "must avenge this
cruel murder—on my wicked brother. But do
nothing against the Queen—for I have loved
her, and she is your mother. Remember me."
Then seeing the morning approach, the ghost
vanished.
"Now," said Hamlet, "there is nothing left
but revenge. Remember thee—I will remember
nothing else—books, pleasure, youth—let
all go—and your commands alone live on my
brain."
So when his friends came back he made them
swear to keep the secret of the ghost, and
then went in from the battlements, now gray
with mingled dawn and moonlight, to think
how he might best avenge his murdered father.
The shock of seeing and hearing his father's
ghost made him feel almost mad, and for fear
that his uncle might notice that he was not
himself, he determined to hide his mad longing
for revenge under a pretended madness in other
matters.
And when he met Ophelia, who loved him—and
to whom he had given gifts, and letters, and
many loving words—he behaved so wildly to
her, that she could not but think him mad.
For she loved him so that she could not believe
he would be as cruel as this, unless he were
quite mad. So she told her father, and showed
him a pretty letter from Hamlet. And in the
letter was much folly, and this pretty verse—
"Doubt that the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love."
And from that time everyone believed that
the cause of Hamlet's supposed madness was
love.
Poor Hamlet was very unhappy. He longed to
obey his father's ghost—and yet he was too
gentle and kindly to wish to kill another
man, even his father's murderer. And sometimes
he wondered whether, after all, the ghost
spoke truly.
Just at this time some actors came to the
Court, and Hamlet ordered them to perform
a certain play before the King and Queen.
Now, this play was the story of a man who
had been murdered in his garden by a near
relation, who afterwards married the dead
man's wife.
You may imagine the feelings of the wicked
King, as he sat on his throne, with the Queen
beside him and all his Court around, and saw,
acted on the stage, the very wickedness that
he had himself done. And when, in the play,
the wicked relation poured poison into the
ear of the sleeping man, the wicked Claudius
suddenly rose, and staggered from the room—the
Queen and others following.
Then said Hamlet to his friends—
"Now I am sure the ghost spoke true. For if
Claudius had not done this murder, he could
not have been so distressed to see it in a
play."
Now the Queen sent for Hamlet, by the King's
desire, to scold him for his conduct during
the play, and for other matters; and Claudius,
wishing to know exactly what happened, told
old Polonius to hide himself behind the hangings
in the Queen's room. And as they talked, the
Queen got frightened at Hamlet's rough, strange
words, and cried for help, and Polonius behind
the curtain cried out too. Hamlet, thinking
it was the King who was hidden there, thrust
with his sword at the hangings, and killed,
not the King, but poor old Polonius.
So now Hamlet had offended his uncle and his
mother, and by bad hap killed his true love's
father.
"Oh! what a rash and bloody deed is this,"
cried the Queen.
And Hamlet answered bitterly, "Almost as bad
as to kill a king, and marry his brother."
Then Hamlet told the Queen plainly all his
thoughts and how he knew of the murder, and
begged her, at least, to have no more friendship
or kindness of the base Claudius, who had
killed the good King. And as they spoke the
King's ghost again appeared before Hamlet,
but the Queen could not see it. So when the
ghost had gone, they parted.
When the Queen told Claudius what had passed,
and how Polonius was dead, he said, "This
shows plainly that Hamlet is mad, and since
he has killed the Chancellor, it is for his
own safety that we must carry out our plan,
and send him away to England."
So Hamlet was sent, under charge of two courtiers
who served the King, and these bore letters
to the English Court, requiring that Hamlet
should be put to death. But Hamlet had the
good sense to get at these letters, and put
in others instead, with the names of the two
courtiers who were so ready to betray him.
Then, as the vessel went to England, Hamlet
escaped on board a pirate ship, and the two
wicked courtiers left him to his fate, and
went on to meet theirs.
Hamlet hurried home, but in the meantime a
dreadful thing had happened. Poor pretty Ophelia,
having lost her lover and her father, lost
her wits too, and went in sad madness about
the Court, with straws, and weeds, and flowers
in her hair, singing strange scraps of songs,
and talking poor, foolish, pretty talk with
no heart of meaning to it. And one day, coming
to a stream where willows grew, she tried
to hang a flowery garland on a willow, and
fell into the water with all her flowers,
and so died.
And Hamlet had loved her, though his plan
of seeming madness had made him hide it; and
when he came back, he found the King and Queen,
and the Court, weeping at the funeral of his
dear love and lady.
Ophelia's brother, Laertes, had also just
come to Court to ask justice for the death
of his father, old Polonius; and now, wild
with grief, he leaped into his sister's grave,
to clasp her in his arms once more.
"I loved her more than forty thousand brothers,"
cried Hamlet, and leapt into the grave after
him, and they fought till they were parted.
Afterwards Hamlet begged Laertes to forgive
him.
"I could not bear," he said, "that any, even
a brother, should seem to love her more than I."
But the wicked Claudius would not let them
be friends. He told Laertes how Hamlet had
killed old Polonius, and between them they
made a plot to slay Hamlet by treachery.
Laertes challenged him to a fencing match,
and all the Court were present. Hamlet had
the blunt foil always used in fencing, but
Laertes had prepared for himself a sword,
sharp, and tipped with poison. And the wicked
King had made ready a bowl of poisoned wine,
which he meant to give poor Hamlet when he
should grow warm with the sword play, and
should call for drink.
So Laertes and Hamlet fought, and Laertes,
after some fencing, gave Hamlet a sharp sword
thrust. Hamlet, angry at this treachery—for
they had been fencing, not as men fight, but
as they play—closed with Laertes in a struggle;
both dropped their swords, and when they picked
them up again, Hamlet, without noticing it,
had exchanged his own blunt sword for Laertes'
sharp and poisoned one. And with one thrust
of it he pierced Laertes, who fell dead by
his own treachery.
At this moment the Queen cried out, "The drink,
the drink! Oh, my dear Hamlet! I am poisoned!"
She had drunk of the poisoned bowl the King
had prepared for Hamlet, and the King saw
the Queen, whom, wicked as he was, he really
loved, fall dead by his means.
Then Ophelia being dead, and Polonius, and
the Queen, and Laertes, and the two courtiers
who had been sent to England, Hamlet at last
found courage to do the ghost's bidding and
avenge his father's murder—which, if he
had braced up his heart to do long before,
all these lives had been spared, and none
had suffered but the wicked King, who well
deserved to die.
Hamlet, his heart at last being great enough
to do the deed he ought, turned the poisoned
sword on the false King.
"Then—venom—do thy work!" he cried, and
the King died.
So Hamlet in the end kept the promise he had
made his father. And all being now accomplished,
he himself died. And those who stood by saw
him die, with prayers and tears, for his friends
and his people loved him with their whole
hearts. Thus ends the tragic tale of Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark.
