The Shakespeare Story-Book

“I have no words; my voice is in my sword,” returned Macduff.

They fought, but for awhile neither got the better. Then Macbeth told Macduff that he was losing labour, for it was as easy for his keen sword to hurt the air as to wound him. He bore a charmed life, which could not yield to one of woman born.

“Despair thy charm!” cried Macduff. And the next moment Macbeth knew that the witches had doubly deceived him, for his second hope had failed – Macduff proclaimed that his birth had been different from that of ordinary mortals, so that in a way he might be said never to have been born.

“Accursed be the tongue that tells me so!” exclaimed Macbeth, “for it hath cowed my better part of man. And be those juggling fiends no more believed, that palter with us in a double sense; that keep the word of promise to the ear, and break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee!”

“Then yield thee, coward!” taunted Macduff, “and live to be the show and gaze of the time; we’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, painted upon a pole, and underwrit, ‘Here you may see the tyrant.’”

His words goaded Macbeth’s failing nerve to fresh fury. Desperate and despairing, he flung his final challenge at his foe.

“I will not yield to kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet, and to be baited with the rabble’s curse! Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane, and thou opposed, being of no woman born, yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, and cursed be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”

Hamlet

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.