Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Gertrude, the Queen of Denmark, became a widow when King Hamlet died suddenly. Less than two months after his death, she married his brother Claudius. This shocked everyone because it seemed unthinking, or worse. Claudius was very different from her late husband, both in looks and character. He was unattractive and had a poor character. 

Some people even thought that he might have secretly killed his brother to marry his widow and become king, instead of young Hamlet, the dead king’s son and rightful heir. But no one was as upset as young Hamlet by the queen’s quick remarriage. He loved and admired his late father a lot, and was a very honorable person himself. 

He was really upset by his mother Gertrude’s actions. He became very sad, and lost his cheerfulness and good looks. He stopped enjoying books, sports, and everything else he used to like. He saw the world as an unkept garden where only weeds grew. 

He was upset about not becoming king, which was his rightful place, but he was even more upset that his mother had forgotten his father so quickly. She had loved his father, who was a loving and gentle husband to her. She always seemed loving and obedient to him, as if she needed him. And now, in less than two months, she had remarried – married his uncle, her late husband’s brother. 

This marriage was not proper or lawful because they were closely related, and it was even more improper because it happened so quickly and the man she married was not fit to be king. This upset young Hamlet more than losing ten kingdoms would have.

His mother Gertrude and the king tried to make him happy, but they failed. He kept wearing black clothes as if he was mourning his father’s death. 

He even wore them on the day his mother got married, and didn’t join any celebrations of that shameful day. He was most worried about how his father had died. Claudius said that a snake had bitten him, but young Hamlet suspected that Claudius was the snake. In other words, he thought Claudius had killed his father to become king, and that the snake who had bitten his father was now the king.

Hamlet was troubled. He wondered if he was right in suspecting his mother. He questioned if she was involved in his father’s murder, and if she knew about it or not. Hamlet had heard a strange story. Soldiers had seen a ghost that looked just like his dead father. They had seen it on the castle grounds at midnight for several nights. 

The ghost always wore the same suit of armor that the dead king used to wear. Those who had seen it, including Hamlet’s close friend Horatio, all said the same thing about it. It appeared when the clock struck twelve. It looked pale and sad rather than angry. Its beard was rough, and silver in color, just like when the king was alive. It didn’t respond when they spoke to it, but once, it seemed like it was about to speak. But then, the morning rooster crowed, and the ghost quickly disappeared.

Hamlet was amazed by their story. He couldn’t deny it because all the details matched. He thought they had seen his father’s ghost. He decided to keep watch with the soldiers that night, hoping he would see the ghost. He believed the ghost must have appeared for a reason, and it had something to say. So he eagerly waited for night to fall.

When it was night, he stood watch with Horatio and Marcellus, one of the soldiers, at the spot where the ghost usually appeared. It was a cold night, and they were chatting about the cold when Horatio said the ghost was coming.

Hamlet was surprised and scared when he saw what looked like his father’s spirit. At first, he prayed for heavenly protection. He didn’t know if the ghost was good or bad, or why it had come. But then he felt braver. The ghost looked so much like his father that Hamlet felt the need to speak to it. He called it “Hamlet, King, Father!” and asked why it had left its grave to visit them. 

He asked if there was anything they could do to bring peace to the ghost’s spirit. The ghost signaled Hamlet to follow it to a more private place.

Horatio and Marcellus tried to stop Hamlet from following the ghost. They were afraid it might be an evil spirit that would lead him to dangerous places and scare him into losing his mind. But Hamlet didn’t listen to them. He wasn’t afraid of losing his life, and he believed his soul was safe because it was immortal. Feeling brave, he broke free from his friends and followed the ghost wherever it led him.

When they were alone, the spirit finally spoke. It told Hamlet it was his father’s ghost. He said he had been killed cruelly, and explained how. His own brother, Claudius, who was also Hamlet’s uncle, had killed him. He did it to take over his wife and kingdom. Claudius had found him sleeping in his garden, which was his usual habit in the afternoon. 

Claudius poured a deadly poison into his ears. This poison was so powerful, it quickly spread through the body, making the blood boil and covering the skin with a terrible rash. So, in his sleep, he was taken away from his kingdom, his queen, and his life by his own brother. 

The ghost urged Hamlet to take revenge for his horrible murder. The ghost was also sad that his wife had moved away from her values to marry the man who killed him. But he warned Hamlet not to harm his mother, and to let heaven and her own guilt punish her. Hamlet promised to do as the ghost said, and then the ghost disappeared.

After the ghost was gone, Hamlet decided to forget everything he knew and only remember what the ghost told him to do. He didn’t tell anyone about his talk with the ghost, except his dear friend Horatio. He also made Horatio and Marcellus promise to keep what they had seen a secret.

Seeing the ghost had scared Hamlet. He was already feeling weak and sad, and this made him almost lose his mind. He worried that people might notice this change in him. If his uncle thought he was planning something or knew more about his father’s death, it could put him in danger. So, he decided to pretend to be crazy. He thought if he acted mad, his uncle wouldn’t suspect him of anything serious. He believed his real feelings would be hidden better if he acted crazy.

From then on, Hamlet acted strangely in how he dressed, spoke, and behaved. He played the part of a madman so well that the king and queen were fooled. They didn’t think his sadness over his father’s death could make him act so mad. They didn’t know about the ghost. 

They thought he was acting this way because of love, and they thought they knew who he loved. Before Hamlet became so sad, he had loved a beautiful girl named Ophelia. 

She was the daughter of Polonius, who was the king’s main advisor. Hamlet had given her letters and rings, and told her he loved her many times. He had tried to win her love in a respectful way, and she had believed his promises and pleas. But his recent sadness had made him ignore her. 

From the time he started acting crazy, he began to treat her badly. But she believed it was his mental sickness, not real unkindness, that made him treat her this way. She compared his mind, as good as it once was but now troubled by deep sadness, to beautiful bells. 

When played properly, they make beautiful music. But when played wrongly, they only make a terrible noise. Even though Hamlet was busy with a serious job – to get revenge on the man who killed his father – thoughts of Ophelia still came to him. 

He realized he had been too harsh with her and wrote her a letter. It was full of wild expressions of love and strange words that matched his pretend madness. But there were also kind words showing he still loved her deeply. He asked her to doubt the stars were fire and the sun moved, to doubt truth could lie, but never to doubt his love for her. 

Ophelia showed this letter to her father. He felt he had to show it to the king and queen. They thought that love was the real reason for Hamlet’s madness. 

The queen hoped Ophelia’s good qualities might cure his madness, and he would return to his normal self. But Hamlet’s problem was deeper than they thought. It couldn’t be cured so easily. He kept thinking about the ghost of his father that he had seen. 

The ghost’s command to get revenge for his murder didn’t let him rest until he had done it. Every hour he waited felt like a sin. But it was difficult to kill the king who was always surrounded by his guards. If his mother wasn’t there, it might have been easier. But she was always with the king, and he didn’t want to harm her. Also, the fact that the king was his mother’s husband made him feel guilty. 

The thought of killing someone was horrible to him because he was naturally a gentle person. His sadness and the long time he had been feeling low made him unsure and hesitant about taking such a strong step. Besides, he wasn’t sure if the spirit he saw was really his father or if it was the devil. 

He had heard that the devil could take any form he wanted, and he might have taken his father’s form to trick him into committing such a serious crime as murder. So, he decided to find more solid evidence before he acted, rather than trusting a vision which might be a trick.

While Hamlet was in this uncertain mood, some actors came to the court. Hamlet had liked watching them in the past, especially when one of them performed a tragic speech about the death of the old King of Troy and the sadness of his queen. 

Hamlet was happy to see his old friends, the actors. He asked the actor to perform the speech again. The actor did it so well, describing the cruel death of the old king, the burning of his city, and the mad grief of the queen, that everyone who was watching felt like they were really there. Even the actor’s voice broke and he cried real tears.

This made Hamlet think. If the actor could feel such emotion for a character from a story, why was he, with a real reason for strong feelings, so calm? 

His father, a real king, had been killed and yet it seemed like he had forgotten to take revenge. He thought about how a good play can make the viewer feel. He remembered a story about a murderer who confessed his crime after watching a play about a murder. So, he decided to have the actors perform a play that was similar to his father’s murder. 

He would watch his uncle’s reaction to see if he was really the killer. He ordered a play to be prepared and invited the king and queen to watch it.

The play was about a murder in Vienna. A duke named Gonzago was killed by his relative Lucianus for his property. Lucianus also managed to make Gonzago’s wife, Baptista, fall in love with him soon after the murder.

The king, queen, and all the court were present for the play, and Hamlet sat close to his uncle to watch his reactions. In the play, Gonzago’s wife says she would never remarry if her husband died. She even says it would be a curse to take a second husband and only wicked women who kill their first husbands do so. 

Hamlet noticed his uncle and his mother becoming uncomfortable at these words. But when the actor playing Lucianus came to poison Gonzago in the garden, the similarity to what the king had done to Hamlet’s father was too much. 

The king couldn’t sit through the rest of the play. Suddenly calling for lights and pretending or actually feeling sick, he quickly left the theater.

After the king left, the play was stopped. Now, Hamlet felt sure that the ghost had told him the truth. 

He was so relieved, like someone who finally gets the answer to a big question. He told his friend Horatio that he would trust the ghost’s word completely. But before he could decide what to do about his uncle, who he now knew had killed his father, his mother asked to speak with him in private.

The king had told the queen to talk to Hamlet. He wanted her to tell him they were both upset with his recent behavior. The king also wanted to know everything Hamlet said, so he told Polonius, an old government advisor, to hide behind a curtain in the queen’s room and listen. Polonius liked to find things out in sneaky ways, so he was happy to do this.

When Hamlet met his mother, she immediately started to criticize him. She told him he had upset his father, meaning her new husband, the king. Hamlet was very angry that she was calling his uncle, who had killed his real father, by that special name. 

He said to her sharply, “Mother, you have upset my father.”

The queen said that wasn’t a good answer.

 “As good as the question,” Hamlet replied. 

The queen asked if he had forgotten who he was talking to. 

“Unfortunately, I haven’t,” Hamlet answered. “You are the queen, the wife of your husband’s brother, and you are my mother. I wish you weren’t.”

“If you’re going to be so rude, I’ll call someone else to talk to you,” the queen said, thinking about calling the king or Polonius. But Hamlet didn’t let her leave. He wanted to talk to her about her actions. He made her sit down. 

She was scared of his intense attitude and shouted for help. Hamlet heard a voice from behind the curtain and thought it was the king hiding there. He drew his sword and stabbed at the curtain, just as if he were attacking a rat. The voice stopped, and Hamlet thought the person was dead. But when he pulled back the curtain, it wasn’t the king, but Polonius, who had been spying on him.

“Oh no!” the queen cried. “What a terrible thing you’ve done!”

“It’s terrible, mother,” Hamlet replied, “but not as terrible as what you did – killing a king and marrying his brother.”

Hamlet couldn’t stop now. He was ready to tell his mother exactly what he thought. 

Even though children should usually be gentle with their parents, sometimes, when a parent has done something very wrong, a child needs to speak up. If they’re doing it to help the parent see their mistakes, it’s not a bad thing. Hamlet did this. He spoke with his mother about her terrible action. 

He told her she had forgotten her first husband, the dead king, too quickly and married his brother, who was thought to have killed him. He told her that her action made it hard to trust any promises made by women, made all goodness seem fake, and turned marriage into a joke. He told her she had done something so bad that heaven was shocked and the earth didn’t want her.

He showed her two pictures. One was of the dead king, her first husband. The other was of the new king, her second husband. He asked her to look at the differences. He described how handsome and god-like his father had been. Then he pointed out her new husband, who looked like a disease compared to his brother. The queen felt very ashamed.

Hamlet asked her how she could live with this man who had killed her first husband and stolen the crown like a thief. 

Just then, the ghost of his father appeared again. Hamlet was very scared and asked what the ghost wanted. The ghost reminded him to take revenge, something Hamlet had forgotten. The ghost asked him to speak to his mother so she wouldn’t die of fear and grief. 

Only Hamlet could see the ghost. His mother was terrified and thought he was talking to nothing. She thought he had lost his mind. Hamlet told her not to think his madness had brought back his father’s ghost. It was her own bad actions. He showed her that his heartbeat was normal, not like a mad person’s. He asked her to say sorry to God for what she had done and to stay away from the king in the future. 

When she started to respect his father’s memory, he would treat her like a good son should. She promised to do what he said, and their talk ended. Then Hamlet had time to think about who he had killed. 

When he realized it was Polonius, the father of Ophelia, whom he loved very much, he was very sad. He moved the dead body away and cried for what he had done. Polonius’s unfortunate death gave the king a chance to send Hamlet away. 

The king would have liked to kill him, as he was scared of him, but the people loved Hamlet, and so did the queen, even though she had many faults. So, the clever king sent Hamlet to England by ship, pretending it was for his own safety. 

He sent letters with two court members to the English court, which was under Denmark’s rule at that time. He asked for Hamlet to be killed as soon as he arrived in England. 

Hamlet suspected something was wrong, so he secretly read the letters one night. He changed the letters to say that the two court members should be killed, not him. Then he put the letters back.

Shortly after, pirates attacked the ship. Hamlet, wanting to show his courage, fought the pirates alone. His ship left him behind, and the two court members hurried to England with the changed letters. 

The pirates, realizing who Hamlet was, hoped he would do them a favor in return for their kindness, so they left him in Denmark. Hamlet then wrote to the king, telling him how he had ended up back in his country. 

He said he would see the king the next day. When he got home, he saw something very sad. It was the funeral of Ophelia, who was once his girlfriend. She had become very confused after her father’s death. 

The fact that he was killed by Hamlet, the prince she loved, upset her so much that she lost her mind. She would give flowers to the court ladies, saying they were for her father’s funeral, and sing songs about love and death. Sometimes she would sing songs that made no sense. She once went to a brook with a garland of flowers and weeds. 

When she tried to hang it on a willow tree, she fell into the water. Her clothes kept her afloat for a while, and she sang old songs as if she didn’t realize what was happening, or as if she belonged in the water. But soon, her wet clothes pulled her down and she drowned. Hamlet arrived at her funeral, which her brother Laertes was leading with the king, queen, and all the court present. 

Hamlet didn’t know what was happening, so he stood aside, not wanting to disturb the ceremony. He saw flowers on her grave, as was the custom for young, unmarried women. 

The queen herself threw them in, saying, “Sweet flowers for a sweet girl! I thought you would be Hamlet’s wife, not lying in a grave.”

 Hamlet heard her brother hope that violets would grow from her grave, and saw him jump into the grave, overwhelmed with sadness, and ask to be buried with her. Hamlet remembered his love for Ophelia and thought he loved her more than her brother did. He showed himself and jumped into the grave. 

Laertes, who knew Hamlet was responsible for his father’s and sister’s deaths, grabbed him by the throat. 

People separated them, and Hamlet explained that he did this because he couldn’t stand someone grieving more than he was for Ophelia. For a while, the two young men seemed to make peace. But the king, Hamlet’s evil uncle, used Laertes’s sadness and anger to plan Hamlet’s death. He tricked Laertes into challenging Hamlet to a friendly fencing match. Hamlet agreed and a date was set. The entire court was there. The king had given Laertes a poisoned weapon. 

Both Hamlet and Laertes were known for their fencing skills, and people made big bets. Hamlet picked a foil without knowing about Laertes’s treacherous plan. 

Laertes was using a sharp, poisoned weapon instead of a blunt sword. At first, Laertes let Hamlet win a bit, and the king praised Hamlet a lot and made big bets. But then Laertes hit Hamlet with the poisoned weapon, causing a deadly wound. 

In the confusion, Hamlet switched his innocent weapon with Laertes’s deadly one and injured Laertes with his own sword. The queen suddenly screamed that she was poisoned. She had drunk from a bowl meant for Hamlet that the king had poisoned. 

The king forgot to warn her and she died, saying she was poisoned. Hamlet, thinking something was wrong, ordered the doors to be shut. Laertes confessed that he was the traitor and said Hamlet would die soon from the poison. He asked for Hamlet’s forgiveness and died, blaming the king for everything. 

Hamlet, knowing he would die soon, stabbed his evil uncle with the poisoned sword, fulfilling his promise to his father’s spirit. Then he asked his friend Horatio, who had seen everything, to tell his story to the world. Horatio promised to do so. 

Hamlet then died, and Horatio and the others cried and wished that angels would look after him. 

Hamlet was a kind and loving prince and was loved for his noble qualities. If he had lived, he would have been a great king for Denmark.

THE END