Hamlet lifted the arras, and found that, after all, it was not the guilty murderer whom he had hoped to punish, but the meddlesome old Chamberlain, who had fallen a victim to his sudden impulse. His task of vengeance had still to be accomplished.
“Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell,” said the young Prince, gazing at him sorrowfully. “I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune! Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.”
Thus the officious old man’s prying ways met their punishment. And Hamlet’s lack of resolution, too, brought its penalty; for if he had had strength of will to carry out what he believed to be his duty, he would not have thus trusted to the blind impulse of the moment, and a comparatively innocent life would not have been sacrificed.
But he had matters too important waiting to spare much time for regret. Letting the arras fall on the henceforth silent prattler, Hamlet turned to his mother. In the most forcible manner he pointed out to the Queen how blameworthy had been her conduct. In vivid language he sketched a portrait of her two husbands, showing how noble had been the one brother, and how contemptible was the other. What strange delusion could have cheated the Queen, after knowing her first husband, to have married such a wretched being as Claudius?
“O Hamlet, speak no more!” implored the Queen. “These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears; no more, sweet Hamlet.”
“A murderer and a villain!” continued Hamlet, with increasing scorn and vehemence; “a slave that is not the twentieth part the tithe of your former lord; a buffoon king; a cutpurse of the empire and the sceptre, who from the shelf the precious diadem stole, and put it in his pocket!”
“No more!” besought the Queen.
“A king of shreds and patches——”
Hamlet’s torrent of wrath died on his lips. Before him stood once more the spirit of his father, gazing at him with calm, rebuking eyes.
“Save me, and hover o’er me with your wings, you heavenly guards!” murmured the young Prince, in an awestruck whisper. “What would your gracious figure?”