But Hamlet is beset by doubts and cannot kill Claudius.
The opportunity arises when, on his way to meet his mother, he comes upon Claudius praying. Now Hamlet really must avenge his father. He gains proof when he asks a troupe of actors to reenact the poisoning before Claudius and Claudius reacts strongly. British Museumīut the ever more troubled prince is uncertain whether the ghost even spoke the truth. Hamlet and his Father’s Ghost, William Blake, 1806. The time is out of joint: – O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right! The scene finishes with young Hamlet revealing reluctance: The ghost of Hamlet’s father returns, this time telling his son he was murdered – poisoned – by Claudius (it was “murder most foul”) and urging Hamlet to avenge his death. We soon learn that the old king has only been dead two months and that Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, has hastily married the new king, Hamlet’s uncle Claudius. Upon seeing him, Horatio recalls the time when “in an angry parle, / He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.” This counterpoint to Hamlet’s famed inaction, like the ghost of the king itself, haunts the play. In the play’s first scene, the ghost of old king Hamlet silently appears to Horatio, Hamlet’s friend. His father, the recently deceased king, also called Hamlet, was, in contrast to his son, a warrior. He attends the University of Wittenberg and is an intellectual. Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, is a modern character. And this is why Hamlet, which depicts this state of inaction, is the Everest of literature. I’m certain that I’m far from alone in assessing my life this way.
For while I’m familiar with the woes associated with love, jealousy and ambition, my greatest grief is that time and again I did not act when the situation called for it. I’m being silly, but it’s my way of coping. Well … ah … It’s about when someone does something bad, and you’re pretty sure what they did wasn’t right, and you ought to do something about it, but you can’t find it within yourself to do this something, and your uncertainty and inaction cause you even more distress, but events roll on – as they always do – and everything ends up worse than if you’d done something in the first place.
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