We continue our deep dive into Hamlet through the words of its main character and others, with the turning point of the play. After a holding pattern of two months where Hamlet tries to ascertain the true cause of his father's death, he comes up with the brilliant plan of having the actors who appeared at his front door, stage a play which closely resembles his understanding of the murder of his father the late king. If the man he suspects, Claudius the current king is guilty, Hamlet will know by his reaction to the play.
SPEAK THE SPEACH I PRAY YOU... (III, ii, 1-47)
This speech opens Act Three Scene two where just before the performance to the court, Hamlet speaks, as Shakespeare might have at the Globe Theater in London, directly to his actors.
I mentioned in the last post that Hamlet is Shakespeare's most personal play. We don't know much about William Shakespeare the person, he left no journals or personal correspondence. So this speech might be the closest thing we have to a self-portrait:
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced
it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth
it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and
beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O,
it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious,
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very
rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the
most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable
dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow
whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods
Herod. Pray you, avoid it...
It's interesting to note that the only time Hamlet appears to be genuinely happy during the play, is when he is with the players.
Could this be Shakespeare channeling his own passion?
The genuine happiness evolves into near mania as Hamlet smells blood while the court assembles taking their seats before the stage. Hamlet fills in Horatio, the only person in the world he can trust, of his plan. Hamlet asks his friend to keep an eye on the king to see his reaction during the murder scene. Then they'd compare notes following the play. Horatio agrees.
As the play begins, Hamlet takes it upon himself not only to be master of ceremonies, but also to offer a running commentary on the plot.
At one point, Ophelia, (with whom he has engaged in bawdy dialog, much of it hidden in double-entendre that is lost on most contemporary audiences), offers the opinion:
You are as good as a chorus, my lord. (III, ii, 269)
The plan works as Claudius demands a stop to the play when the plot starts hitting too close to home.
Hamlet is ecstatic, especially after his observations are confirmed by Horatio's.
Not so ecstatic is Hamlet's mother Gertrude who demands through Rosencranz and Guildenstern as well as Polonius, that he come to her closet (bedroom) to speak with her.
After dispatching all three, Hamlet once again is alone and delivers this, his fifth soliloquy where he gathers his thoughts about the imminent encounter with his mother:
'TIS NOW THE VERY WITCHING TIME OF NIGHT,,, (III, ii, 419-432)
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes
out
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot
blood...
Soft, now to my mother...
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites...
In the following scene, the king charges Rosencranz and Guildenstern with the task of accompanying Hamlet on his forced exile to England which they gladly accept. Polonius then enters and informs the king of his plan to spy on the encounter between and Hamlet and his mother.
Thus the fate of all three characters is sealed.
What comes next is perhaps the most revealing and chilling moment in the entire play featuring overlapping soliloquies, first from Claudius, then Hamlet.
OH, MY OFFENSE IS RANK, IT SMELLS TO HEAVEN (III, iii, 40,-103)
Alone in a dark room, sometimes depicted in performances as a chapel, Claudius turns inward:
A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will.
Claudius wants to come clean and confess his sin to God, asking for mercy...
What if this cursèd hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow?
But there's a catch. His contrition is incomplete because he is unwilling to repent by giving up the spoils of his grave sin:
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?
That cannot be, since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder:
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain th’ offense?
... What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limèd soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged!
Sill he makes a go of it:
Help, angels! Make assay.
Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe.
All may be well.
At this point Hamlet enters, finding Claudius alone. He sees his chance:
NOW MIGHT I DO IT... (III, iii, 77, 101)
But...
...now he is a praying.
And now I’ll do ’t. (He draws his sword.)
And so he goes to heaven,
And so am I revenged. That would be scanned:
A villain kills my father, and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
On second thought Hamlet thinks, maybe this isn't such a good time to kill the bastard. Why kill him now while he's in a state of grace confessing his sins when he could kill him...
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed,
At game, a-swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in ’t—
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damned and black
As hell, whereto it goes.
We explored this scene in my first Hamlet post where I pointed out that Hamlet's actions here could be interpreted as an example of his indecision, reluctance and fear of killing the king.
But I don't think so. It's clear in this scene that both men are under the grip and have a firm understanding of Christian doctrine. But neither man is acting very much as a Christian. Imagine that.
In the notes section to my second Hamlet post, I listed a series of required plot elements for the revenge tragedy genre that Hamlet belongs to. On the list was one item I originally thought did not apply to Hamlet, that "objects of revenge are often better than the avengers." Now I'm not so sure.
Claudius here has at least a moment of self reflection, admitting his unconscionable sin. He's also wise enough to understand that from the Christian point of view, his redemption will only come by giving up the things most important to him, his crown, his ambition and his queen, the things he gained from his sin.
Hamlet on the other hand, through his (perhaps justifiable) hatred of Claudius, is not satisfied by merely taking his uncle's life as the ghost of his father requested, but on top of that, he wants to send the king's soul to hell. In that regard he is not satisfied playing the role of the avenging son, he wants to play the role of God, which from a Christian point of view is the greater sin.
The irony here is that Claudius gets the last laugh. He ends the scene with this rhymed couplet:
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
It turns out he wasn't in a state of grace after all.
I could but I won't, write an entire post on the next scene, the one I described earlier as "the cringiest scene in the entire play". It is the closet scene, where Hamlet mistakenly kills Polonius as he is hiding behind the curtains while spying on Hamlet and Gertrude, thinking that he is the king.
In the rest of the scene, Polonius' lifeless body remains in the room like an unwelcome guest, as Hamlet and his mother go over the unpleasantries of the situation of her having married both her late husband's brother and his killer, (the latter role apparently being news to her).
Read the scene, (Act III, scene iv) as it was written and see if you agree with Dr. Freud on Hamlet's relationship with his mother. As Shakespeare doesn't give us much substance regarding Gertrude's story, much like Ophelia's, her character can go in many directions.
The by now mouldering Polonius hardly gets any more respect in the next scene where Claudius demands to know where Hamlet has stashed his body. Reading this dialog written with the blackest of humor, it's hard to know whether to laugh or to cry:
KING Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius? (IV, iii, 19-43)
HAMLET At supper.
KING At supper where?
HAMLET Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A
certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at
him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We
fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves
for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is
but variable service—two dishes but to one table.
That’s the end....
... A man may fish with the worm that hath eat
of a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that
worm.
KING What dost thou mean by this?
HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
progress through the guts of a beggar.
KING Where is Polonius?
HAMLET In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger
find him not there, seek him i’ th’ other
place yourself. But if, indeed, you find him not
within this month, you shall nose him as you go up
the stairs into the lobby.
KING, (to Attendants). Go, seek him there.
HAMLET He will stay till you come.
By this point in the play, Hamlet has clearly gone off his rocker.
Or has he?
One of the most common questions of the play is this: "Has Hamlet gone mad, or is his peculiar behavior all an act?"
He is clearly at his "maddest" in this ghoulish scene but in reality, what he is actually saying cannot be denied as being eaten by worms is indeed the ultimate destiny of us all. Hamlet will elaborate on this theme in greater detail in the graveyard scene in the final act.
There are as many opinions on the subject of Hamlet's perceived madness as there are people willing to offer them. I highly recommend watching this 1989 episode of ITV's The South Bank Show. Not only does the program include snippets of great performances ranging from John Barrymore to a young Mark Rylance, but it is chock full of commentary, from heartbreakingly profound to flat out nonsensical, and everything in between, exactly what you'd expect from this play.
The subject of Hamlet's supposed madness can be found at the 17:40 point of the video.
Mad as he appears in the above scene with Claudius, in the next scene Hamlet has regained whatever sanity he may have lost as he delivers his last, and most powerful soliloquy.
HOW ALL OCCASIONS DO INFORM AGAINST ME, (IV, iv, 34-69)
And spur my dull revenge.
At the risk of redundancy, let's sum up the plot up to this point:
- Hamlet learns from his father's ghost that he was murdered by his brother Claudius.
- Hamlet resolves to avenge his father's murder but...
- First he must convince himself that Claudius is indeed guilty, not as easy thing to do as Claudius represents A) the only living witness to the crime and B) as king, he represents the justice system.
- Hamlet devises a brilliant scheme to determine Claudius' guilt or innocence by witnessing his reaction to a play that recreates the crime he supposedly committed.
- When finally satisfied of Claudius' guilt, Hamlet springs into action but refrains from killing Claudius at first while he's praying, so as not to send his soul to heaven.
- Instead he springs into action in the next scene by killing a man (Polonius) whom he mistakenly believes to be Claudius.
- Claudius sends Hamlet into exile.
Thus the jig is up for Hamlet as he is banished to England. On the way to the ship, he encounters wave upon wave of soldiers on the march. He questions a captain whose powers these are and is told they are of Norway under the command of Prince Fortinbras, nephew of the current king and son of the slain king who like Hamlet's father, shared his name.
Fortinbras has been granted permission by Claudius, to march his army through Denmark in order to invade a small portion of Poland, which in the captain's words is:
a little patch of ground (IV, iv, 19-20)
That hath in it no profit but the name.
Hamlet expresses to the captain incredulity at sending an entire army to fight over an insignificant piece of land:
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats (IV, iv, 26, 30)
Will not debate the question of this straw.
This is th’ impostume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks and shows no cause without
Why the man dies.—I humbly thank you, sir.
Keep these lines in your back pocket as I'll come back to them later.
Now on to the soliloquy. The theme of what sets humans apart from the other animals recurs throughout the play:
...What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused.
If you've been wondering where folks get the idea that Hamlet's (supposed) inaction comes from his thinking too much, Hamlet here tells us as much:
Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th’ event
(A thought which, quartered, hath but one part
wisdom
And ever three parts coward), I do not know...
This is the sentence that generations of commenters have picked up upon, leading them to declare that Hamlet's tragic flaw is an overabundance of thinking that renders him unable to act.
The clever term "analysis paralysis" is often dragged out to describe Hamlet's problem.
I happen to know a little about analysis paralysis because I suffer from it. For example when I was shopping for a new computer earlier this year, I found the perfect model at a good price. But I let the opportunity slip by for many reasons including bestial oblivion (in my case, procrastination), thinking too precisely on the event, the one part wisdom, (did I really need a new computer?), and three parts coward, (the thought of parting with a thousand bucks). Besides I reasoned, there would be a better time for me to buy one in the future since computers are always going on sale.
I happen to know a little about analysis paralysis because I suffer from it. For example when I was shopping for a new computer earlier this year, I found the perfect model at a good price. But I let the opportunity slip by for many reasons including bestial oblivion (in my case, procrastination), thinking too precisely on the event, the one part wisdom, (did I really need a new computer?), and three parts coward, (the thought of parting with a thousand bucks). Besides I reasoned, there would be a better time for me to buy one in the future since computers are always going on sale.
Well, it turned out we started a war with Iran which resulted in the Strait of Hormuz being blocked. Among the many raw materials that were affected by this act was helium, a necessary ingredient in the production of computer chips. Who would have thought?
Anyway, three weeks after I almost bought myself a new computer, I revisited the issue by looking at the website where I originally found my ideal machine and of course, it was nowhere to be found. In fact, instead of listing several dozen models as before, the site listed precisely three, all of which were priced well over two thousand dollars. There's a lesson to be learned here isn't there? Maybe I'll write a play about it someday.
The Wikipedia page devoted to analysis paralysis features a fable about a fox and his friend a cat. One day the fox was bragging to the cat that he is so clever, he has many options to avoid danger while the cat has only one, climbing up a tree. No sooner than the words came out of his mouth, a hound began chasing the two of them. Predictably the cat ran up a tree. But the fox, with all his escape options in mind, couldn't come up with which one would be the best so...
Damned analysis paralysis strikes again.
My question is this: why would Shakespeare bother to write a five act, nearly 4,000 line play, which many people including myself consider to be among the finest achievements of the human mind, whose primary "lesson" could easily be summed up by snarky term, a trivial anecdote or a trite fable?
Read on:
Hamlet continuously berates himself for not being successful in killing Claudius but hardly ever does he question whether or not he should go through with the deed. He is not indecisive at all:
Why yet I live to say “This thing’s to do,”
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do ’t.
Now to the gist of the speech:
Examples gross as Earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell.
As we saw a minute ago, Fortenbras is Hamlet's direct counterpart, including the part about his being puffed with divine ambition. How the two men differ is that Fortenbras is a man of action while at least in own his eyes, Hamlet is not.
Here's the money quote:
Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor’s at the stake.
Let that sink in for a while and we'll get back to it.
The concluding eleven lines are simply mind blowing and perhaps if he had written nothing else, Shakespeare might still be regarded as the greatest storyteller of all time:
How stand I, then,
That have a father killed, a mother stained,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men
That for a fantasy and trick of fame
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth
My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!
In this soliloquy, Hamlet once again castigates himself by comparing his actions to the actions of someone else. Here because of his "craven scruples" that seem to prevent him from killing Claudius, he is unfavorably comparing himself to his counterpart who apparently has no such scruples, risking his own life and that of his entire army, going full speed ahead to fight a foolhardy battle.
The obvious conclusion to this is Hamlet saying to himself: "if he can go ahead with this cockamamie scheme, why can't I carry out a more worthwhile action?"
How then are we to judge Hamlet at this point?
My guess is that to Shakespeare, judging Hamlet is pointless, there's something much more important going on here.
Going back to his remarks to the captain, Hamlet is unequivocally appalled at the actions of Fortenbras:
This is th’ impostume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks and shows no cause without
Why the man dies...
Hamlet here is saying Fortenbras' brazen actions are a result of too much complacency in society, comparing the condition to an impostume, that is, a cyst inside the body which upon bursting unnoticed, kills the body.
Yes, Hamlet is clearly upset with himself that he has so far been unsuccessful in killing Claudius. But in the big picture, who cares?
For me, once I see the image of twenty thousand souls going to their graves to fight over a plot of land that's not big enough to bury their bodies, I can't unsee it.
If Shakespeare were interested in making this play only about Hamlet, he wouldn't have needed to include that line. Which is why I'm truly surprised when I read summaries of this soliloquy that focus purely on Hamlet's inaction or indecisiveness.
Let's get back to the "money quote" which bears repeating:
Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor’s at the stake.
Really?
It's understandable why Hamlet might feel this way given his current state of mind. But is finding quarrel in a straw when honor's at stake really a good idea? Are these truly words to live by?
The answer was no in Shakespeare's time as well as our own time, witnessed by the cruelty, unjust wars and inhumanity we keep putting ourselves through, all in the name of somebody's honor.
Here in this most brilliant scene and elsewhere in his work, Shakespeare the social critic is not defining the fatal flaw of one man, he is defining a fatal flaw of humanity.
---
And so Hamlet sets off for England, leaving behind a trail of tears back home, thanks to his impetuous murder of Polonius. You can read about Act IV scenes five through seven in my post titled " A Fellow of Infinite Jest."
Speaking of which:
ALAS POOR YORICK... (V, i, 190-202)
Hamlet unexpectedly comes back to Denmark. Act V begins with Hamlet and Horatio in a graveyard coming upon gravediggers at work. Hamlet, a little taken aback at the casual nature the men go about their business, tossing about human skulls as if they were rocks, engages one of them in some friendly banter which turns philosophical when Hamlet earnestly inquires how long it takes a body to decompose.
To illustrate his answer, the gravedigger pulls out a skull that belonged to Yorick the Court Jester who had died two decades earlier. This leads Hamlet to deliver his most poignant speech of the play:
...I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his
back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in
my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung
those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your gibes 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 chapfallen? Now get you to my
lady’s ⟨chamber,⟩ and tell her, let her paint an inch
thick, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh
at that.....
Which inspires this dialog with Horatio, where Hamlet contemplates the idea of death being the great equalizer:
They are not wrong.
On the other hand, for me a better interpretation is that the one time in the play Hamlet acts decisively without thinking is when he kills Polonius, mistaking him for Claudius. This it can be argued, is the act that sets into motion all of the collateral damage to follow, namely the deaths of Polonius, Ophelia, Gertrude, and Laertes. (As Hamlet's exile to England had been already in the works before Polonius' demise, we can't say for certain that Rosencranz and Guildenstern's fates would have been any different).
HAMLET Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing. (V, i, 202-223)
HORATIO What’s that, my lord?
HAMLET Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this
fashion i’ th’ earth?
HORATIO E’en so.
HAMLET And smelt so? Pah!⌜(He puts the skull down)
HORATIO E’en so, my lord.
HAMLET To what base uses we may return, Horatio!
Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of
Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?
HORATIO ’Twere to consider too curiously to consider
so.
HAMLET No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither,
with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it, ⟨as
thus:⟩ Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander
returneth to dust; the dust is earth; of earth
we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he
was converted might they not stop a beer barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth which kept the world in awe
Should patch a wall t’ expel the ⟨winter’s⟩ flaw!
If all you take away from this play is the notion that the current occupation of Alexander the Great is being a stop for a beer barrel, you could certainly do worse.
From the theory of death comes the real thing, the tomb the grave digger is preparing turns out to be Ophelia's. As they lay her in the ground, Laertes, so overcome with grief, jumps into the grave with his dead sister. Not to be outdone, Hamlet, who has just learned of her death, jumps in as well saying:
I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers (V, i, 285-287)Could not with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
Frankly, I'm a bit stymied by this scene. I want to say that Hamlet is honestly shocked and grieved at Ophelia's death, so I don't believe this to be an act, but I'm not sure. In contrast, Laertes' grief as well as his profound hatred for Hamlet are certainly not an act, After all, it was Hamlet who killed Laertes' father which led directly to Ophelia's descent into madness and death. For me, the nature of Hamlet's relationship with Ophelia is the biggest mystery in the play. He may have genuinely loved her, but as we'll see in the following scene, the last of the play, for Hamlet, once Ophelia is out of sight, she's out of mind. Despite all the histrionics over her in this scene, Ophelia will not be mentioned again.
And now, the Final Scene.
Through his conversation with Horatio, we learn about Hamlet's adventures aboard the ship bound for England, the fate of Rosencranz and Guildenstern, and Hamlet's return to Denmark made possible with the help of obliging pirates.
Next comes the arrival of Orsic, Claudius' messenger who brings news of the fencing match the king has proposed between Hamlet and Laertes.
Hamlet accepts.
Horatio warns his friend that this might be a trap and offers to intervene on his behalf to postpone the match.
Hamlet declines responding:
Not a whit. We defy augury. There is ⟨a⟩ (V, ii, 233-238)
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 of aught he leaves knows, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be.
It's hard to imagine Hamlet Schwarzenegger whom we met in the last post, saying these words. The same goes for the Hamlet of Acts I through IV.
These lines mark a profound transformation in Hamlet's character. Quoting scripture, here he exchanges the divine ambition we saw as he stood dagger in hand above the praying Claudius,, for acceptance of his fate.
Let be he says, death will come when it comes, the readiness is all.
That death will come soon enough as the body count at the end of the play will testify. Even Fortenbras who comes upon the scene fresh from his venture in Poland, is appalled by the carnage.
The fencing match of course is rigged. Hamlet discovers this too late, after Laertes blindsides him with his venomed, unbated sword, In the melee that follows, weapons are exchanged and Hamlet returns the favor, wounding Laertes with the poisoned sword.
As the two men are mortally wounded, Laertes blames the king for setting up the rigged fight, which also claims Gertrude who drank from the poisoned cup meant for Hamlet.
Upon hearing this, Hamlet wounds the king with the venomed blade.
The king cries out for help which never comes from his once adoring public, and Hamlet forces his uncle/stepfather to drink his own poison.
The king cries out for help which never comes from his once adoring public, and Hamlet forces his uncle/stepfather to drink his own poison.
And with that, Hamlet's vengeance is complete, In fact it's a three-for-one deal, not only does he successfully avenge his father's death, but now also his mother's and his own. For his part, Laertes, by killing the prince has successfully avenged both his father's and his sister's deaths. And with the fall of the Court of Denmark, Fortinbras whose father was killed by Hamlet's father, has avenged that death without having to lift a finger.
So what does this all mean?
To me it seems that in this orgy of vengeance and death, Shakespeare is making a mockery of human frailty and hubris, as if to say as he does in a much different context in a much different play:
Lord, what fools these mortals be. (A Midsummer Night's Dream, III, ii, 117)
But what do you think? Remember, this being Shakespeare, there are really no wrong answers, OK maybe just a few.
Yet another remarkable feature of Hamlet the play, is that so much of it lives in the ambiguous realm of "what if".
Some would suggest that had Hamlet not spent so much time thinking thinking about it and acted more decisively by killing Claudius earlier in the play, much of the carnage would have been avoided.
They are not wrong.
On the other hand, for me a better interpretation is that the one time in the play Hamlet acts decisively without thinking is when he kills Polonius, mistaking him for Claudius. This it can be argued, is the act that sets into motion all of the collateral damage to follow, namely the deaths of Polonius, Ophelia, Gertrude, and Laertes. (As Hamlet's exile to England had been already in the works before Polonius' demise, we can't say for certain that Rosencranz and Guildenstern's fates would have been any different).
In killing Claudius, Hamlet most certainly himself would have been killed however...
Hamlet could have defied his mother and Claudius by going back to school in Germany and beyond that, could have defied the wishes of his dead father and not taken up the cause of avenging his death. He could have chosen to suffer the slings and arrows of living under King Claudius until his natural death, whereupon Hamlet would have become king and set it all right, if he chose to. But as I suggested earlier, that would not have made for a very interesting play.
Or Hamlet could have used his tremendous intelligence to lead an uprising to overthrow Claudius. It probably wouldn't have been too hard as Laertes didn't seem to have much trouble leading a mob to overtake the palace guards at Elsinore. But then he wouldn't have fulfilled his mission as the tragic hero-avenger in a revenge play, his death being the central ingredient in the genre that Hamlet the play belongs.
In the last two scenarios, perhaps the most interesting "what if" question of all arises: would Hamlet have made a good king?
Fortenbras expresses his opinion on the matter in the concluding words of the play:
Let four captains (V , ii, 441-449)Hamlet may have had another opinion about himself. Way back in Act One, when Horatio heaps praise upon his father, Hamlet says this:
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royal; and for his passage,
The soldier’s music and the rite of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this
Becomes the field but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
He was a man. Take him for all in all... (I, ii, 195)
Here, Hamlet could have been talking about himself, and in doing so, he might have summed up the whole of the play in that one simple line.
Which brings me back to Bernard Grebarnier whom I quoted extensively in Part One of my Hamlet series. This bears repeating:
Which brings me back to Bernard Grebarnier whom I quoted extensively in Part One of my Hamlet series. This bears repeating:
(Shakespeare) is the world’s greatest poet and dramatist, and he knew more about human relationships than anyone who has ever written about them... But we must come to him with some experience to begin with; and, above all, unless we come with our humanity ready to be touched and exercised, it is better not to come to him at all.
As Hamlet was indeed a man, not the action-super hero many of us wish him to be, those of us with some experience in life can begin to understand him. And to truly understand Hamlet the character and Hamlet the play, we need to read it as Shakespeare wrote it, then ask ourselves honestly: "what would I have done if I were in his place?"
Since we are all different and bring varied perspectives to the table, we can expect a vast array of interpretations of the work because as I've said all along, Shakespeare doesn't provide us with easy answers, only questions.
The glory of Hamlet and most of Shakespeare's work is that well over four hundred years after it was written, it continues to speak to us, perhaps not exactly the way it did to its original audience, but in a fresh way perfectly suited to our own time.
If we humans manage to still be around in another four hundred years, I'm certain that our descendants will still be reading and performing Hamlet, discovering bits and pieces that speak to them in a way that we cannot even begin to understand today.
Shakespeare has a way of doing that.
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