Look where he goes even now out at the portal!

[III, iv, 134-136]

“Portal,” in the Oxford English Dictionary, is defined as “a door, gate, doorway, or gateway, of stately or elaborate construction.” Only the outer stage doors can satisfy this definition. Thus, Hamlet’s description of the departure can pertain only to one of the outer stage doors. I offer a conjectural reconstruction of this scene. After Hamlet slays Polonius, who has been hiding behind the arras at the rear of the stage, he draws his mother forward, seating her upon one of the stools distributed about the stage. The pictures of the royal brothers, probably hanging on a wall of the façade, if the evidence of A Warning for Fair Women is applicable,[20] are unveiled by Hamlet, who then comes downstage toward Gertrude. Thus, when the Ghost enters, he comes on stage behind mother and son and in front of his own picture. At the sight of the Ghost, Hamlet falls to his knees. After admonishing his son, the Ghost completes his crossing and “steals away ... even now out at the portal.”

For the staging of the last two ghost scenes, the evidence is scanty. Banquo’s ghost enters and sits at the banquet table twice. Since the table is forward on the stage, Banquo presumably follows the same course as the other ghosts, entering at one stage door, sitting, and leaving at the other door. Despite a modern predilection for more elaborate stage trickery, there is no evidence that the stage machinery was employed in the staging of ghost scenes at the Globe. The last of the ghost scenes confirms the evidence of the other plays. Brutus is seated in his tent, reading a book. The Ghost of Caesar appears. The lines of Brutus imply that the Ghost walks toward him. At first Brutus says:

Who comes here?... It comes upon me.

[IV, iii, 275-278]

Finally, as the Ghost departs, he cries:

Now I have taken heart thou vanishest.

[287]

The last verb may be deceptive. In The Devil’s Charter the stage direction “they vanish” describes the departure of the ghosts through an outer door. In Jeronimo a ghost is said to have vanished though he still delivers another five lines before he exits through the stage door. Altogether the evidence indicates that the ghost scenes were staged with a minimum use of stage properties or machinery, with great simplicity and with standard methods.