Left alone, a bitter feeling of disgust at his own weakness and irresolution seized Hamlet. The sight of this actor’s passion and despair over the fate of an entirely imaginary person made him realise his own lack of duty with regard to his father. Here was a King who had been most cruelly murdered, and his son did nothing to avenge his loss, but, like John-a-dreams, idle of his cause—a dull, spiritless rascal—he simply wasted his time in brooding, and said nothing. His wrath against his uncle blazed up again with sudden fury, and all his thoughts turned to vengeance. But he checked his exclamations to plan practical measures.
“About, my brain! Hum!—I have heard that guilty creatures, sitting at a play, have by the very cunning of the scene been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaimed their ill deeds; for murder, though it have no tongue, will speak in most miraculous fashion. I’ll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle; I’ll observe his looks; I’ll tent him to the quick; if he but blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen may be the devil; and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape. I’ll have grounds more relative than this,” concluded Hamlet, touching the tablets on which he had inscribed the message from the Ghost. “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”
“The Mouse-trap”
Next day, in accordance with their scheme, the King and Polonius hid themselves behind the arras, to listen to the interview between Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet, as usual, was meditating deeply on the problems of life, when Ophelia approached, and offered to restore to him some gifts which he had given her in happier days.
In the sudden tragedy which had overwhelmed Hamlet’s whole being, his love for Ophelia seemed something very far away, but the old tenderness was always struggling to assert itself. He tried, however, to force it down, and even assumed an air of harsh indifference which almost broke Ophelia’s heart. In apparently wild and rambling words, but really deeply penetrated with pity, he gave her to understand that all thoughts of marriage between them must now be over, and bade the young girl get to a nunnery, and that quickly, too. The hollowness and hypocrisy that he saw all around him goaded his spirit almost beyond endurance, and now another blow to his belief in human nature was to be struck.
When Polonius hid himself behind the arras it is doubtful whether Ophelia knew he was there, or, in the excitement of the moment, she may possibly have forgotten the fact. Anyhow, when Hamlet suddenly asked her, “Where’s your father?” she answered, “At home, my lord.” But her reply filled Hamlet with fresh scorn for the apparent insincerity of this innocent young girl. He had seen the arras stir, and Polonius’s old gray head peep out; he naturally thought that Ophelia was in league with the rest of the world to spy upon him and deceive him.
“Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house,” he said, in clear, cutting accents, when he heard Ophelia’s response. “Farewell!”
“Oh, help him, you sweet heavens!” murmured Ophelia.
It seemed quite evident to her that the unfortunate young Prince had lost his reason.
“If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry,” cried Hamlet wildly: “be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go; farewell!”