The "Tragedy of Hamlet" has its origin in the murder of Hamlet's father, its development in Hamlet's preparation for revenge, and its consummation in the murderer's death. It is well summed up in the Anglicized title of the old German play, 'Fratricide Punished,' ('Hamlet,' Variorum Edition, Furness, Vol. II., p. 121). In the progress of this tragedy Ophelia's own sad story has no part or lot. She is in it, but not of it, and her relationship to it is an episode. Like 'The Murder of Gonzago,' however, it is a tragedy within the tragedy, but it turns wholly upon the loves of Hamlet and Ophelia, their interruption, and its result. For this reason it is greatly shorn of detail, and therefore doubtless it has always been regarded as a mystery.
"The Tragedy of Ophelia" opens with a narrative of Hamlet's ardent pursuit of Ophelia with vows of love, the surrender of her maiden heart to him, and their free and bounteous interviews thereafter. Here the action of the drama begins, and her father, doubting the integrity of Hamlet's purpose, forbids her further reception of his attentions, and, apparently without explanation made to Hamlet, she obeys him. Of what Hamlet thinks or says of this we are not in terms informed, and can only infer it from his conduct towards her afterwards. But that conduct was of a most extraordinary character, seeming to many students of the play to be inexplicable. The explanations of others may be resolved into three theories, each of which deserves a passing notice. It has been claimed that insanity will account for it, and indeed Hamlet's treatment of Ophelia has been the chief argument advanced in proof of his insanity; but it is incredible that Shakespeare should have devoted the only two interviews which he had with her, and which had so important an influence upon her life, to the mere vaporings of a madman. It has been suggested that he is putting on "an antic disposition," as he had foretold he would, with a view to deceiving the King concerning his intentions, and such conduct would have been fitting with the temptress in Belleforest's 'Hystorie,' (Ibid., 91); but Shakespeare has transformed the creature of that story into Hamlet's gentle sweetheart, and so to lacerate her soul by way of subterfuge would have been an act of unjustifiable brutality, of which he could by no means have been guilty. It has been urged that his mind's eye is jaundiced by his mother's gross behavior, and that thereupon he turns distrustfully from womankind; but long after his mother's wicked marriage, perhaps a month afterwards, he is reveling in Ophelia's love,--a balm that gracious Nature often pours on bleeding hearts. And further, from either of these points of view, the sudden and extravagant change in Hamlet's feelings towards Ophelia, the cruel harshness of his speech to her soon after, and his subsequent complete indifference to her, are beyond the requirements of the situation, and the theories therefore seem rather to perplex than to explain.
Undoubtedly the cause of this is that they seek the solution of the riddle in the effect on Hamlet's relations to Ophelia of prior incidents in the play, his father's murder, his mother's marriage to the murderer, and the ghostly mission of revenge. But there are in the situation at the end of Act I of 'Hamlet' and wholly unconnected with these incidents, all the elements of a tragedy, few and simple, but profoundly significant. Thus, we have a prince who is an ardent lover, a court lady who has as ardently returned his love, the lady's sudden and unexplained refusal to see or hear from him, her ambitious and time-serving courtier father, and for a King a "remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain." Let but a spark of jealous suspicion reach such a mixture, and there must be an explosion; with a war-hardened Othello-like titanic rage and murder, but with the softer Hamlet renunciation and reproach, and with poor Ophelia, who represses her feelings always, heart-break, insanity, and death.
Now, Hamlet is pictured as one of the most suspicious of men, and in particular at this juncture about his mortal enemy the King. In addition, he is very proud and very revengeful, as he admits, and there is every indication that he has been passionately fond of Ophelia. When therefore she persistently denies herself to him in private, though doubtless a regular attendant at the functions of the court, his suspicions are excited, his pride wounded, his anger aroused; and, with "the pangs of despis'd love" in his heart, and in his mind a tumult of conflicting thoughts, he suddenly presents himself before her, resolved to know the truth. "What damned moments counts he o'er Who dotes, yet doubts,--suspects, yet fondly loves." In Quarto I she says: "He found me walking in the gallery, all alone"; that is, in the gallery of the King's palace,--(compare lines 673 and 803),--and of course within reach of the King; and, though Shakespeare afterwards transferred this scene to her chamber in her father's house, it may not be overlooked that the remarkable interview of which Ophelia tells was conceived originally as occurring on the impulse of the moment and under stress of feeling caused apparently, by Hamlet's unexpected and dumbfoundering discovery:
"He took me by the wrist and held me hard.
Then goes he to the length of all his arm,
And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long time stayed he so.
At last--a little shaking of my arm,