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 Claudias 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.
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 behavior 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
theater, 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 en 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, 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 named
Osric arrives on Claudius’s orders to arrange the fencing match between Hamlet
and Laertes.
The sword-fighting begins.
Hamlet scores the first hit, but declines to drink from the king’s proffered
goblet. Instead, Gertrude takes a drink from it and is swiftly killed by the
poison. Laertes succeeds in wounding Hamlet, though Hamlet does not die of the
poison immediately. First, Laertes is cut by his own sword’s blade, and, after
revealing to Hamlet that Claudius is responsible for the queen’s death, he dies
from the blade’s poison. Hamlet then stabs Claudius through with the poisoned
sword and forces him to drink down the rest of the poisoned wine. Claudius
dies, and Hamlet dies immediately after achieving his revenge.
At this
moment, a Norwegian prince named Fortinbras, who has led an army to Denmark and
attacked Poland earlier in the play, enters with ambassadors from England, who
report that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Fortinbras is stunned by the
gruesome sight of the entire royal family lying sprawled on the floor dead. He
moves to take power of the kingdom. Horatio, fulfilling Hamlet’s last request,
tells him Hamlet’s tragic story. Fortinbras orders that Hamlet be carried away
in a manner befitting a fallen soldier.
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