The tragedy was written and staged in 1601. In July 1602, the play was registered in the Booksellers' Register - most likely (as had already been done before), not for the purpose of publication, but in order to avoid pirated editions, since by law no one except the person who entered the play into the register had the right for its publication. However, the following year the first, so-called “bad” quarto was published, which was clearly of a pirate nature. Instead of 3,788 lines, the text contained 2,154, and Hamlet’s monologues especially suffered, not only being greatly shortened (as a rule, by about half, and one monologue even six times), but also acquiring a rather incoherent and at the same time primitive character. In addition, in the first quarto, Hamlet’s reflections have a rather pious style, and the hero’s last words sound like “Heaven, accept my soul!” All this is absolutely not characteristic of Shakespeare's work. At the same time, the “bad” quarto has a certain value due to the penetration into the text of clearly non-fictional production details (for example, the robe in which the Phantom was dressed).
Despite the obvious facts, many 19th-century Shakespeare scholars believed that they were dealing with the first version of Hamlet. Only in the 20th century was it noticed that the text of three small roles: the guard Marcellus, the courtier Voltimand and the actor playing Lucian in the performance of “The Murder of Gonzago” - in the “bad” quarto coincides word for word with subsequent editions (and the text of scenes involving these characters). From this it was not difficult to conclude that all three roles were played by the same actor, a hired worker who played minor roles, and it was he who tried to reconstruct the full text of “Hamlet” from memory. Discrepancies in individual names (Gertrude - Geruta) could be explained by the mistakes of the “pirate”, who perceived most of the text only by ear; more serious changes (for example, Corambis instead of Polonius) may be explained by the “pirate’s” familiarity with an old play about Hamlet in which he may have acted. However, the name Gerut, present in the source, could have been in the old play.
Quite a lot of evidence has survived about the first play, which was performed on stage back in 1589, but they give a very rough idea of its character, and the text has not survived. The old play is usually attributed to Thomas Kyd because of Nash's allusion to it and on the grounds that Kyd created the first English "revenge tragedy" - the Spanish Tragedy (its hero Hieronimo is also an avenger, and many of the techniques coincide with Shakespeare's Hamlet, up to the “performance within a performance”: however, these techniques were also typical for other “revenge tragedies”). Also worthy of attention is the German play “Punished Fratricide,” published in 1781, but clearly written much earlier. Since from the end of the 16th century English actors often went on tour to Germany, it is easy to assume that it is based on both pre-Shakespearean and Shakespearean Hamlet.
In 1604, the second edition of Shakespeare's Hamlet was published - with the subtitle "Reprinted and enlarged according to the original and correct text." This edition was clearly not pirated and indeed reproduced the original and correct text. According to A. Bartoshevich, the considerations were as follows: “Since the play was stolen anyway, let at least the readers get acquainted with the author’s original.” However, the text of Hamlet in the First Folio differs from the text of the Second Quarto. It contains about 70 lines that are missing from the Second Quarto, which in turn contains 218 (!) lines that were not included in the First Folio. J. Dover Wilson believed that this was due to the shortening of the text for stage presentation. In addition, even in matching lines there are significant discrepancies. This can be explained both by a later author's edit (Hamlet was a great success and did not leave the stage for a long time), or by an edit made by an unknown person after Shakespeare's death. The quarto does not contain the 85 lines that made it into the folio.
Modern editions of Hamlet combine both quarto and folio texts. As for discrepancies, until the 20th century the text of the First Folio was taken as the basis; in the 20th century, especially in its second half, the text of the second quarto. There is good reason for this: in the First Folio there are frequent attempts to simplify Shakespeare's complex and paradoxical metaphors. Thus, “beginnings of great height” (hereinafter referred to as their “streams”) are transformed into “beginnings of great power” closer to “streams”.
The text of the second quarto was reprinted in 1611. Shakespeare's main source was the legend of Prince Amleth, recorded in Latin by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200) and retold by the French writer François de Bellefort in his Tragic Histories (fifth of seven volumes, 1576). In 1608, Belforet's novella was published in English under the title "The History of Hamlet" with the addition of some phrases borrowed from Shakespeare's play (for example, the exclamation "Rat!" at the moment of Hamlet's murder of the character corresponding to Polonius - it is characteristic that, having introduced these details , the translator did not change the image of the decisive avenger one iota).
However, the Scandinavian legend is far removed from the Renaissance tragedy created by Shakespeare. Although the chronicle of Saxo Grammar contains prototypes of Shakespeare's main characters and a significant part of the plot (to which Belfore added the love affair of Amleth's mother with his uncle even before the murder of his father - however, after the reproaches of her son, Geruta repented of her guilt and blessed his decision to take revenge), it is missing a ghost demanding revenge. (According to Thomas Nashe, the Phantom first appeared in an old play with which Shakespeare was certainly familiar.) The name of the killer of the ruler of Jutland, Gorwendil, is no secret, and Amleth, who pretended to be crazy out of cunning, does not need anyone’s calls. When he is sent to England, he, as in the play, forges a letter, arranges the execution of his companions, and also inserts into the letter a request to marry him to the daughter of the English king (England was then in the same vassal dependence on Denmark as Russia later was on the Golden Hordes, and the local king could not help but fulfill the requests of a large Danish feudal lord, who is the royal son-in-law in his country).
A year later, Amleth returns to Jutland in disguise and finds the court celebrating the anniversary of his death. He takes part in the feast, managing to get everyone present drunk. When they fell asleep, having fallen to the floor, Amleth covered them with a large carpet, which he nailed to the floor so that no one could get up, and then set the palace on fire. Both his uncle Fengon and all the other courtiers were burned, and Saxo Grammaticus pathetically praised Amleth for this. The mother actively helped her son in carrying out the reprisal, but here Belfore’s speculations already appeared. He softened the punishment: Amlet did not burn the courtiers, but stabbed them to death with pikes prepared by Geruta.
Fengon, according to Belfort, even before the end of the feast, retired to his bedchamber, where Amlet cut off his head with a sword.
Amleth spoke to the people, who justified his actions. Amleth's speech contains phrases reminiscent of Brutus's speech in Julius Caesar (Plutarch does not have these phrases). This similarity, like many others, suggests that Hamlet was conceived immediately after Julius Caesar.
The turbulent life of Amleth did not end there, being continued by Belfore, but this no longer has anything to do with Shakespeare’s tragedy.
Shakespeare made his hero not the son of the ruler of Jutland, but the son of the Danish king. To the motives drawn from the sources, Shakespeare added the theme of Ophelia, Laertes’ revenge and the image of Fortinbras (Amlet’s father Gorwendil defeated the Norwegian king in a duel and received his wealth, but the Norwegian theme did not continue), as well as such vivid episodes as the “mousetrap” scene and the cemetery scene. And, naturally, the ending was changed.
Hamlet is certainly a response to the Essex plot, although the play does not and could not contain any allusions for censorship reasons. However, Hamlet's experiences mirror Shakespeare's own; his final revenge expresses Shakespeare's unrealizable desire to take revenge on those who defeated the conspirators; Hamlet's death and the honor given only to him symbolize the death of Essex. In addition, in the life of Essex himself there were facts close to the story of Hamlet. His father died under unknown circumstances, and his mother, soon after her husband’s death, married the Queen’s former favorite, the Earl of Leicester. It was known that the Earl had killed his first wife Amy Robsart - this marriage was not welcomed by the Queen and threatened Leicester's career. It was assumed that he also killed Essex's father. This is the only overt allusion (not to the conspiracy, but to the identity of Essex, a hint that, due to the borrowed plot, could not arouse suspicion). It is possible that it was the personal similarity of Essex’s biography with the life of Amlet-Hamlet that could have given Shakespeare the idea for the play even before the conspiracy took place. At the same time, the image of Hamlet is completely different from Essex, and the tragedy, inspired by historical circumstances, has acquired a much deeper philosophical character.
This has not yet been seen in “revenge tragedies,” and Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” was the first philosophical tragedy, but the vast majority of viewers clearly perceived only the external form. In his brilliant article “For whom was Hamlet written,” Alexey Bartoshevich answered the rhetorical question he asked himself:
“For them, who deafeningly cracked nuts, sipped ale, smacked the behinds of the beauties who wandered into the Globe from the neighboring cheerful houses, for them, who stood on their feet for three hours in the open air, who knew how to be carried away by the scene to the point of oblivion, who were capable of the work of imagination, which turned empty stages into “France Fields” or the bastions of Elsinore - Shakespeare’s plays were written for them, Hamlet was written.
For them, and for no one else, a tragedy was written, the true content of which gradually began to be revealed only to their distant descendants.”
Educated intellectuals supported the mass audience. Gabriel Harvey wrote: “The young are carried away by Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, while the more intelligent prefer his Lucretia and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” It is noteworthy that Harvey placed the tragedy for the public theater above the poem “Venus and Adonis,” that is, above the genre, which was generally considered more serious. University scholar Anthony Skokolker, a fan of academic poetry and especially the work of Philip Sidney, admitted: “When you turn to the lower element, like the tragedies of friendly Shakespeare, they are indeed universally loved, like Prince Hamlet.”
The title of the first quarto indicated that the tragedy was also staged in Cambridge and Oxford.
The plot of the poem is as follows. The guards Bernardo and Marcellus were the first to see the ghost of the king who died less than two months ago near Elsinore Castle. They invite Horatio, a student at the University of Wittenberg, to also look at this amazing phenomenon. Horatio does not believe their stories, however, upon seeing the ghost, he is forced to admit that the guards were right. He sees in this “a sign of some strange unrest for the state” (hereinafter translated by M. Lozinsky), recalls similar episodes from ancient Roman history.
Marcellus is more concerned with modernity. He asks to explain to him the “strict patrols” in which he, as an officer, himself takes part, the casting of copper cannons, the purchase of military supplies, the recruitment of carpenters who work seven days a week. Horatio answers his question. He recalls how the late king was challenged to a duel by the Norwegian king Fortinbras, and he, having died, according to the agreement, “lost along with his life” the lands under his control. Now the younger Fortinbras, the son of the Norwegian king, having gathered a “band of lawless daredevils”, intends to recapture the lands lost by his father. Horatio sees this as the reason for what Marcellus was talking about. Bernardo also agrees with Horatio.
The ghost of Horatio appears again and addresses him and asks him to speak. However, the rooster crows and the ghost leaves. They try to restrain him, but in vain. Marcellus rightly notes that since the ghost is invulnerable, they only insult him by attacking him. Horatio suggests not hiding what he saw from young Hamlet. He is sure that the ghost will talk to him.
The second scene takes place in the main hall of the castle and opens with a long speech from the throne by the new king Claudius. Having said that
The death of our beloved brother
Still fresh, and befits us
There is pain in our hearts, -
Claudius justifies his marriage to the widow of the deceased king, Gertrude, and thanks everyone for their support in this. Then he moves on to political issues, to those plans of young Fortinbras that Horatio spoke about. He sends his courtiers to deliver a letter to the Norwegian king, Fortinbras's uncle, who, being weak, is unlikely to have “heard about his nephew's plans,” and to negotiate with him. Claudius in his letter asks the king to stop these plans, emphasizing that recruiting and “supplying troops burdens his own subjects.” With all this, Hamlet is also present. Claudius speaks to him very affectionately:
And you, my Hamlet, my dear nephew...
In response to this, Hamlet throws aside his first phrase, from which his attitude towards his uncle is extremely clear:
Nephew - let him; but certainly not cute.
Gertrude joins the conversation, urging her son to take a friendly look “at the Danish ruler.”
It’s impossible, day after day, with downcast eyes,
To look for the deceased father in the dust.
It is worth noting that even Gertrude’s very first remarks show affection and care for her son in intonations.
Hamlet agrees with his mother’s words that death is “the fate of all.” But the question she asked:
So what's in his destiny?
Does it seem so unusual to you? -
causes him a strong reaction to the word “seems.”
I think? No, there is. I don't want
What it seems.
He says that both his mourning clothes and external “appearances, appearances, signs of grief will not express me.” All this can be a game, but the only truth is what he feels inside himself.
Claudius praises Hamlet for the sad debt he pays to his father. However, Hamlet’s father also once lost his father, and Hamlet lost his own. The son must experience grief “for a certain period of time”; but persistence in grief “will be wicked obstinacy.” Claudius perceives this as a sin contrary to reason before heaven, before the dead, before nature itself.
Here Claudius clearly contradicts the demagogic beginning of his own speech. The most truthful words there were:
And, with wise sorrow remembering the deceased,
We also think about ourselves.
Both Claudius and Gertrude ask Hamlet not to return to Wittenberg, and he agrees (if Claudius knew how it would all end, he would, of course, persuade Hamlet to return to his studies).
The University of Wittenberg was founded at the beginning of the 16th century. It became famous for the activities of Martin Luther and his associate Philip Melanchthon there, and was known to English theater audiences as the setting for Marlowe's tragedy Doctor Faustus. Having found himself, thanks to Shakespeare's anachronism, from reformist Wittenberg to early medieval Denmark, Hamlet finds himself there as a man from another era.
Left alone, Hamlet delivers the first of his twelve soliloquies. The matter, as it turns out, is far from just the death of the father.
Hamlet wants death, calling himself a dense clot of meat that must melt and come out as dew (and if we agree with John Dover Wilson’s version that the word solid, meaning “dense,” is correctly read as sullied - “stained”), Hamlet generally experiences hatred to one’s own “vile flesh”; this is how the title of Evelyn Waugh’s novel, which used the research of Dover Wilson, was translated into Russian). Hamlet regrets that God forbade suicide. He compares the world to an unweeded garden; This metaphor is not new, but Shakespeare complicated it by adding that the garden grows into a seed and therefore “the wild and the evil rule in it.” What are the reasons for such reasoning?
Hamlet explains them clearly. His father died two months ago, even less. If you compare him with Claudius, then this is Hyperion compared to the satyr. He loved Hamlet's mother so much that he did not allow the heavenly winds to roughly touch her face.
She was drawn to him
(in the original - “hung on it”),
As if the hunger was only increasing
From saturation. And a month later -
Don't think about it!
A month later, she, showing “vile haste,” rushing and jumping onto the bed, marries her uncle, who resembles her father no more than Hamlet himself resembles Hercules. It turns out that the whole point was only in sensuality, and the external and internal merits of the husband did not matter. Hence the unfortunate conclusion: “Weakness, your name is woman!” (as convincingly proven by V. Komarova, this refers to the “weakness of the flesh,” which goes back to the biblical idea that the flesh is weak).
Already at the beginning of the monologue, Hamlet translated his personal problems into denunciation of the whole world. This will be characteristic of him later. And now, accusing Gertrude, he draws a general conclusion that applies to all women. The translation "O women, your name is weakness of the flesh" would probably be the most accurate.
Hamlet remembers that the mother did not wear out the shoes “in which she followed the coffin, like Niobe, all in tears” (Niobe, who lost her children, is the most tragic of the female images of antiquity), that “the salt of her dishonest tears did not disappear on her reddened eyelids " He even puts her below animals (“a beast devoid of reason would be bored longer!”) and accuses her of incest, which was considered a marriage with the brother of a deceased husband.
But Hamlet can only think and talk to himself about this. He cannot open his thoughts to others - if only in order not to disgrace his own mother. And his monologue ends with the exclamation:
But be silent, my heart, my tongue is bound!
Shakespeare managed in some incredible way to feel and partially embody in his play the “family drama” that arose almost three centuries later. The peculiarity of the “family drama”, which does not always put the family at its core, but always involves very close people, friends, neighbors, workmates, is the demonstrative correctness of what is happening, behind which secret conflicts, sins of the heroes, sometimes even crimes can be hidden .
At the same time, a reader or viewer of, say, Chekhov’s “The Seagull” can either be on Treplev’s side or not approve of him. The same would be possible in relation to Hamlet, if he were the hero of a “family drama”. The reader might even condemn him for slandering his loving mother, whose only fault was that she remarried too quickly. Appearance, so important for Shakespeare (one can recall the ugliness of Richard III, the external shortcomings of Julius Caesar), has no such meaning for the modern viewer; he will not recognize the superiority of one over another just because of greater external attractiveness. The charge of incest remained incomprehensible even to Shakespeare's contemporaries; they could take it as an evil metaphor for Hamlet unless it was confirmed by another character who could be trusted.
Fortunately, Hamlet did not have long to wait for an episode that completely confirmed that he was right and even made it greater.
Immediately after his monologue, Horatio, Marcellus and Bernardo arrive and report a ghost. Hamlet is very happy to see his university friend Horatio, a man close to him in spirit. True, judging by the fact that they both address each other as “you” (in English at that time there was still a division into you and thou), they were not close friends in Wittenberg.
It has been discussed many times why Horatio, who, by his own admission, came to the king’s funeral (that is, almost two months ago) did not meet Hamlet earlier. The first greeting he heard in the opening scene was: “Friends of the country,” which suggests that Horatio was not a Dane (the fact that in a conversation with Hamlet he calls himself his servant can be interpreted in different ways).
The relationship he has developed with the guards is quite acceptable, but why he avoids Hamlet is still unclear. Finally seeing the ghost, Horatio reveals that he knows the dead king's appearance well. It's real; he may have been to Denmark before, but Horatio mentions the fight between Hamlet the father and the Norwegian king. In the fifth act it turns out that Hamlet the son was born on the same day. Even if Horatio was a little older, he could not remember this event.
You can puzzle over these contradictions and accuse Shakespeare of mistakes, but it is much more reasonable to remember: Shakespeare created his plays for the theater, focusing on the immediate perception of the public.
Captivated by the theme of the ghost, the viewer did not think about why Horatio met Hamlet so late. And how could the viewer know exactly when the deceased king fought with the Norwegian? When the viewer found out this, he managed to safely forget Horatio’s words.
Hamlet looks forward to his nightly conversation with the ghost, hoping that “evil will be exposed.” From this we can conclude that he suspects Claudius of murdering his father.
With a brilliant ability to create dramatic composition, Shakespeare does not show the meeting with the ghost right away. He intersperses the theme with a scene in Polonius's house.
While still in the main hall, Polonius's son Laertes begged Claudius for permission to return to Paris, where he came from for the king's funeral. Now he is talking to his sister Ophelia about Hamlet’s love for her. Laertes admits his love, but remarks:
The great have no power in their desires;
He is a citizen at his birth;
He doesn't cut his own piece... -
and advises Ophelia to bury herself “in the rear of her desires.” Then Polonius comes and pronounces his instructions to his son. In the original, Polonius was called Lord Chamberlain, but this, of course, is not the slightest mockery of the owner of the troupe, Hensdon, who held such a post. This meant the late Lord Chancellor William Cecil, Lord Berkeley; It was discovered that Polonius's instructions to Laertes are reminiscent of Berkeley's letters to his son Robert, published at the time of the creation of Hamlet.
Having said goodbye to Laertes, Polonius asks Ophelia to talk about her conversation with her brother, after which he forbids his daughter to spend “her leisure time on conversations and speeches with Prince Hamlet.” The girl obediently agrees.
At night, Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus come to meet the ghost. Having appeared, he beckons Hamlet to follow him. Horatio dissuades Hamlet, fearing that the ghost will lure him “to the wave or to the top of a formidable cliff hanging over the sea,” and there, taking on a terrible form, plunge him into madness. But Hamlet, fearing nothing, goes with the ghost. After this, Marcellus utters the famous phrase:
Something is rotten in the Danish state.
On another part of the site, the main thing takes place - the conversation between Hamlet and the ghost. The ghost asks for revenge for the murder committed on him, saying:
Murder is vile in itself; but this
The most vile and most inhuman of all.
These words raised many questions: if the ghost calls murder as such vile, why does he encourage Hamlet to commit murder too? The thing is that in the era of blood feud, revenge was not considered murder. Those who interpret “Hamlet” in a Christian spirit, believing that “it is impossible to combine... Christian concepts with the ancient pagan idea of vengeance” (A. Spal), would do well to open the Bible and read there such canonical words as “an eye for An eye, a tooth for a tooth."
The ghost tells how he was killed after falling asleep in the garden, and says that “the serpent that struck your father put on his crown.” Hamlet's words:
O my prophetic soul! My uncle? -
finally confirm that he really suspected Claudius.
The ghost, like Hamlet, laments Gertrude's marriage and speaks of incest, calling on his son:
Don't let the Danish kings bed
Become a bed of fornication and incest.
His last words are “Farewell, farewell!” And remember me,” Hamlet announces with his cry. He says:
Ah, I'm from my memory table
I will erase all vain records,
All book words, all prints,
That youth and experience saved;
And in the book of my brain it will remain
Only your covenant, not mixed with anything,
What's baser...
Alexandra Spal, one of the representatives of the Christian interpretation of Hamlet, is indignant: “In order to avenge the father, for his insulted honor and the taken life, it is necessary to clear the brain of everything that filled it during life, that is, to become, as it were, a primitive person who does not know everything what humanity has acquired as a result of civilization.” She herself admits that Hamlet was “in the deepest shock,” but this does not prevent her from drawing far-reaching conclusions.
Hamlet calls Claudius a scoundrel three times, and once a smiling one. He writes in his tablets,
That you can live with a smile and with a smile
To be a scoundrel; at least in Denmark.
This shows that Hamlet does not erase the entries from the book of his brain; on the contrary, he keeps records in real tablets.
When Horatio and Marcellus return, Hamlet tells them nothing about what happened. His phrase is especially noteworthy: “There is no scoundrel in the Danish kingdom...” The thought arises of ending it with the words “Like Claudius,” but Hamlet says:
Who would not be an inveterate rogue.
Horatio aptly remarks:
A ghost shouldn't rise from his grave,
To tell us this.
Hamlet doesn't argue; he only invites everyone to disperse, but before that he asks both of them “not to disclose forever what happened,” and to swear to it on his sword. The ghost also pronounces calls to swear from underground, and Hamlet suddenly asks: “Do you hear that fellow from the hatch?” (translation by A. Bartoshevich). It would, of course, be a mistake to believe that by using a purely theatrical term, Shakespeare also anticipates the Brechtian style, destroying the authenticity of the performance. Indeed, such techniques force the viewer to remember reality, but there are few of them in the play and they do not last long.
When the ghost, moving, calls for an oath twice more, Hamlet calls his companions to move away from the place under which he is located. He even allows himself phrases that have little connection with everything that came before:
Yes, old mole! How quickly you dig!
Great digger!
As Shakespeare's contemporary Dr. Thomas Bright wrote, melancholic people indulge in "alternately mirth and sometimes fury." In Hamlet, everything happens the other way around, but the essence does not change.
Finally, Hamlet, having obviously thought through the tactics of his action, calls on his companions to swear that, no matter how strangely he behaves, they will not hint that they know something. He says: “Swear,” the same phrase is repeated from underground by a ghost, and this time Hamlet is very serious:
Peace, peace, troubled spirit!
Finally, the oath takes place - without trying to escape the ghost.
Hamlet continues to connect his problems with the problems of the world and says:
The eyelid is dislocated. O my evil lot!
I must set my eyelid with my own hand.(Translation by A. Radlova)
The original said: “Time is dislocated at the joint,” which strikingly coincides with Claudius’s opinion of Fortinbras that after the death of Hamlet’s father the Danish state “went out of joints and frames.” Fortinbras's opinion is also close to Montaigne's words that in France everything was “out of line.”
Since in Shakespeare's era, as before, time was portrayed as an old man (who can really dislocate his joint), the translation of the word time as “age” is very appropriate - both because of the masculine gender and because of the monosyllable.
Drawing a general conclusion regarding the first act, there is every reason to say: Hamlet showed himself to be melancholic. The theme of melancholy was very popular at that time. Just a year before Hamlet, Shakespeare created the character of the melancholic Jacques in the comedy As You Like It (it is possible that his role, like the role of Hamlet, was played by Richard Burbage). According to the concepts of that time, melancholy manifested itself in sharp, nervous excitability and demonstrative behavior. These features are evident in Hamlet.
According to Dr. Bright about melancholics, “they are incapable of action.” Will Prince Hamlet be capable of it?
He fulfills his first plan - to portray himself as crazy - very quickly. Ophelia tells her father that Hamlet came to her “in an unbuttoned doublet, without a hat, in untied stockings, dirty, falling to his heels.” He knocked his knees, was pale and looked very pitiful. Hamlet then took Ophelia “by the wrist and squeezed her tightly.” Stepping back “at arm’s length” and raising his other hand to his eyebrows, he began to gaze intently into the girl’s face. All this went on for a long time; then, shaking her hand slightly and nodding his head three times, he let out a mournful and deep sigh, after which he released Ophelia and, looking at her over his shoulder, left the room.
Even while telling his daughter’s story, the father decided that Hamlet was crazy because of his love for Ophelia (she is also afraid that this is so). Polonius regrets that his daughter, fulfilling his demand, was harsh with the prince these days, rejecting his notes and visits. Polonius laments his mistrust of Hamlet and intends to tell the king everything.
Meanwhile, the king and queen receive students from the University of Wittenberg, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are also courtiers. Still not knowing about Hamlet’s “madness,” Claudius speaks of his transformation, that the prince, both internally and externally, is “not similar to his former self.” He asks both, who grew up with Hamlet from a young age, to “stay at court” for some time and “involve him in fun,” and at the same time, as far as circumstances allow, “to find out... if there is something “hidden, why he is depressed.” According to Claudius, once you know, you can heal it.
Gertrude, joining his request, says:
He often remembered you, gentlemen,
And, truly, there are no two people in the world,
He's nicer.
Naturally, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern agree. They do not have the slightest reason to believe that Claudius, and especially Gertrude, wish Hamlet harm (Gertrude did not want this). And when Guildenstern exclaims:
May the Almighty turn our closeness
Good luck and help to him! -
he certainly means it sincerely.
After Rosencrantz and Guildenstern leave, Polonius appears. He talks about the successful return of the embassy from Norway, and then reports that he seems to have found “the source of the prince’s insanity.” Gertrude is counting.
It seems to me that the basis here is still the same -
The death of the king and our hasty marriage,
Claudius, on the contrary, really wants to listen to Polonius. But he asks to listen to the ambassadors first.
One of the ambassadors, Voltimand, says that the Norwegian king believed that soldiers were being recruited for an attack on Poland. Having learned the truth, he sent for Fortinbras, who swore an oath never to take up arms against Denmark. The delighted king allowed his nephew to use the already equipped soldiers against Poland. He sent a petition to Claudius to allow troops to pass through his lands under the conditions of “protection of security and law.” Claudius promises to read it “at a more leisurely hour,” give an answer and discuss “this matter.” He advises the ambassadors to take a break and, after they leave, returns to the conversation with Polonius.
Polonius, having declared “I will be brief,” immediately launches into a comic rant:
Prince, your son is mad;
Mad, because that is what madness is,
How exactly is it not to be crazy?
Having heard Gertrude’s remark: “There would be less art,” Polonius continues in the same spirit:
Oh, there's no art here. That he's crazy
That's true; the truth is that it's a pity
And it's a pity that this is true...
Nevertheless, Polonius tells what he wanted to tell, reads Hamlet’s love letters to his daughter, containing, among other things, even a small poem by the prince, which is dedicated to Ophelia. Polonius is absolutely sure that he is right; Gertrude also admits the possibility that he is right. Polonius says that he will send his daughter to meet the prince, and they will all listen from behind the carpet. Claudius agrees to this.
This is how Polonius first suggests the idea of hiding behind a carpet to eavesdrop, an idea that will ultimately lead to his death.
When Gertrude, seeing her son, says with deep sadness:
Here he is walking sadly with a book, poor thing, -
Polonius invites the king and queen to leave so he can talk to Hamlet. When they, as well as the servants, leave, a dialogue between Polonius and the prince begins.
Hamlet's humor is fundamentally different from his few jokes in the first act. These jokes expressed either sarcasm (“Oh no, I have too much sun” in response to Claudius’ question “Are you still shrouded in the same cloud?”) or joy at the appearance of Horace. Finally, the reason for the strange jokes about the underground ghost was clearly Hamlet's melancholy.
For the first time, depicting madness in front of the audience, Hamlet gets the opportunity to conduct a conversation in a clownish style. The jester was considered, although not crazy, but a fool (hence the complete coincidence of the term “clown” - fool - the word “fool”), but Shakespeare’s jesters were actually distinguished by great intelligence and often expressed very serious things in a comical form. The heroine of “Twelfth Night” Viola accurately expressed her attitude towards them, speaking about the jester Fest:
He plays the fool well.
A fool cannot overcome such a role:
After all, you need to know those you laugh at,
And understand morals and habits,
And on the fly, grab like a wild falcon,
Your prey.(Translation by E. Linetskaya)
Hamlet does exactly the same thing with Polonius, whom he, of course, knows well. It is no coincidence that Polonius, continuing to have no doubt about Hamlet’s madness, utters lines such as “Although this is madness, there is consistency in it” and “How meaningful his answers are sometimes!” Hamlet continues to play the role of the jester in many other subsequent scenes.
Here it must be said that the Shakespeare troupe was in a very difficult situation, being left without the main comedian. William Kemp had already left her, and Robert Armin had not yet arrived. There were comic actors capable of small roles (for example, gravediggers), but that was all. Richard Burbage, who became famous as a tragedian, received, while playing Hamlet, the opportunity to show his comic abilities.
Polonius is about to leave Hamlet in order to immediately arrange a meeting for him with his daughter. He leaves after Rosencrantz and Guildenstern appear.
Hamlet is very happy to see his old friends appear. He jokes with them normally - just like he joked with Horatio, and speaks on a first-name basis. His words that “Denmark is a prison” should apparently not be considered a joke at all.
However, Hamlet tells his friends that they were sent for. However, he is not sure of this and asks, referring to their previous relationship, to answer: “Did they send for you or not?” Rosencrantz quietly asks Guildenstern, "What do you say?"; Hamlet, hearing this, says to the side: “So, now I see,” but says out loud: “If you love me, don’t hide.” Guildenstern answers honestly: “Prince, they sent for us.”
Satisfied, Hamlet promises to explain to them why. This "will remove your confession, and your secret before the king and queen will not lose a single feather."
Hamlet admits that recently (why, he allegedly does not know) he has “lost all his cheerfulness, abandoned all his usual activities.” The earth seems to him a “deserted cape”, the sky - a “turbid and pestilent accumulation of vapors.” He pronounces a whole panegyric to a person, reminiscent of the reasoning of the Renaissance humanists, and then: “What is this quintessence of dust for me?”
It is Rosenkrantz who talks about the arrival of actors and metropolitan tragedians. Hamlet is surprised that they are wandering, because “the settled life was better for them both in the sense of fame and in the sense of income.” Rosencrantz “seems that their difficulties arise from the latest innovations”; he mentions a “brood of children.” This already contains a clear hint of topical theatrical problems. Just in the year of the creation of Hamlet, children's troupes, created mainly from the singers of the Royal Chapel and St. Paul's Cathedral, were extremely popular. Playing the same plays, for some time they surpassed in their unusualness the adult troupes, who, in search of spectators, were forced to go on tour to the provinces (apparently, this did not escape the Shakespeare troupe). These facts are reflected in the play.
“And the children took the power?” - asks Hamlet. “Yes, prince, they took it; Hercules along with his burden,” Rosencrantz replies. (Above the gate of the Globe there was a statue of Hercules supporting the celestial sphere).
For the second time, Shakespeare returns his audience to reality, but not for long. Immediately after these words, drawing a kind of parallel, Hamlet ironically speaks of Claudius.
The sound of trumpets is heard, announcing the appearance of the actors. Hamlet admits that he is glad that his friends are coming to Elsinore and shakes their hands. He even allows himself to be frank: “...my uncle-father and my aunt-mother are mistaken.” “What, my dear prince?” - asks Guildenstern. “I am only mad in the north-north-west; - Hamlet answers, “when the wind is from the south, I can tell a falcon from a heron.”
Polonius returns; Hamlet predicts that he will announce the arrival of the actors; That's how it goes. Hamlet again speaks buffoonishly to Polonius and, clearly teasing him, quotes a popular ballad about the biblical judge Jephthah:
One and only daughter
What he loved most tenderly.
Polonius says aside: “It’s all about my daughter.” Apparently, earlier he was afraid that Hamlet would seduce Ophelia, but now that it has become possible to marry his daughter to a prince, albeit a mad one, this option cannot but attract.
Several actors enter. Hamlet greets them with obvious sympathy and then, oblivious to Polonius's presence, speaks seriously to the first actor. He remembers a play he liked and a monologue he especially loved, Aeneas' story to Dido about the fall of Troy and the death of King Priam. He himself begins to read it from memory, and then invites the actor to continue.
In this they saw an allusion to Marlowe’s last, unfinished play “Dido, Queen of Carthage” (it was completed by Thomas Nash); they saw the influence of Marlowe in the monologue written by Shakespeare. Everything is very logical, but we must not forget that a year later Shakespeare himself wrote a play about the Trojan War - “Troilus and Cressida”; when he wrote Hamlet, the plan may have already been conceived. It is significant that, in Hamlet’s words, “the play... did not please the crowd.” The same thing awaited Troilus and Cressida, which Shakespeare, who had considerable experience, could have foreseen.
The first actor plays in such a way that Polonius is the first to ask him to stop (“his face has changed and there are tears in his eyes”). Hamlet agrees with this.
When all the actors except the first one leave, Hamlet asks him if he and his comrades can play “The Murder of Gonzago” (about a real murder that occurred in Vienna) - a play whose plot is similar to the tragic story of his father. Having heard a positive answer, the prince schedules a performance for tomorrow evening and asks the actor to learn a monologue of twelve or sixteen lines, which Hamlet will compose and insert into the play. The actor agrees.
Left alone, Hamlet admires the actor who
In the imagination, in fictitious passion
So he raised his spirit to his dreams,
That his work made me all pale...
This happened when it came to Hecuba, the queen of Troy.
And all because of what?
Because of Hecuba! What does Hecuba mean to him?
What is he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?
What would he do if he had
The same reason and prompt for passion,
Like mine?
Hamlet calls himself trash, a pitiful slave, a stupid and sluggish fool who mumbles, “like a mouthful, alien to his own truth, and unable to say anything.” The opinion of those Shakespeare scholars and critics who try to deny Hamlet’s slowness is surprising. After all, Hamlet himself speaks about it!
Well, what an ass I am! How nice it is
That I, the son of a dead father,
Drawn to revenge by heaven and Gehenna,
Like a whore, I take my soul away with words
And I practice swearing like a woman,
Like a dishwasher!
Immediately Hamlet begins to attach great importance to the spontaneously arising idea of the performance. He had heard that sometimes criminals were so shocked by the effects of theatrical play that they confessed to their crimes. He is going to look closely at Claudius. Hamlet recalls that the spirit that appeared to him could be the devil, who “has the power to clothe himself in a sweet form,” which is powerful over relaxed and sad souls. The prince needs more reliable support.
Yet the words that conclude the longest of his soliloquies show that Hamlet still believes that Claudius is guilty:
The spectacle is a loop,
To lasso the king's conscience.
The “performance within a performance” technique has already been used several times by Shakespeare. But if in “The Taming of the Shrew” the play being played completely overshadowed the life of modern England, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” the performances were of a divertissement nature, and the play of amateur actors from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was comedic, in “Hamlet” the performance for the first time plays a significant role in plot development.
Claudius learns from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that Hamlet himself admits to his upset, but does not want to admit the reason for it. To Gertrude's question about how Hamlet received his friends, Rosencrantz replies: “With all courtesy,” but Guildenstern adds: “With great tension, too.” This did not correspond to the text of their conversation and, apparently, reflected the intonation of Burbage.
Claudius is pleased that Hamlet is interested in acting; he asks Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to try to increase the prince’s “taste for pleasure.”
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern leave; Claudius asks Gertrude to leave too: he and Polonius are preparing a meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia. The queen obeys her husband; In parting, she wishes Ophelia that her “sweet image” would turn out to be “the cause of Hamlet’s madness,” and that “virtue could set him on the same path.” Gertrude expressively hints at the possibility of marriage.
Claudius and Polonius leave Ophelia with the book in her hands. Having appeared and not yet noticing Ophelia, Hamlet pronounces his most famous monologue - “To be or not to be.” This is the only monologue in which Hamlet in no way (almost in any way) touches on his own life. However, it would be a mistake to consider it an interlude. The monologue allows us to understand a lot about the character of Hamlet.
“To be or not to be” for Hamlet means “to live or not to live.” To live for him is to “submit to the slings and arrows of furious fate,” to die is “to take up arms in a sea of turmoil, to defeat them with confrontation.” The idea of taking up arms (as the original literally says) against the sea seemed to many commentators to be unnecessarily paradoxical; It was suggested that the word sea was a typo, and the manuscript read siege (siege). Such assumptions seem logical, but back in 1875 K.M. Ingleby put forward a convincing version that the metaphor was borrowed from Aelian's Histories (translation by A. Fleming, 1576). This book tells of the custom of the ancient Celts, who, fully armed and with drawn swords, threw themselves into the stormy sea to fight the waves.
Hamlet again, as in his first monologue, thinks about suicide. This time the reason is not his personal problems, but the numerous vices of the world, which can only be resisted in one way - “a simple dagger.” Comparisons with sonnet 66 (where, however, it is not about suicide, but about the desire for natural death) have become typical, and indeed, the reasons indicated in the sonnet are very similar. Hamlet’s thoughts have a lot in common with Montaigne’s idea that the most unhappy person is the one who cannot end his torment by suicide, but still Montaigne speaks of a person’s own torment. Nevertheless, in the chapter “The Custom of the Isle of Kea,” Montaigne glorifies death, saying that it is “a cure for all evils. This is the surest haven that should not be feared, but often should be strived for.”
However, as Valentina Komarova, who devoted an entire book to the influence that Montaigne had on Shakespeare, noted, “Montaigne gives more arguments against suicide than in its defense.” Hamlet gives only one argument against it, but it is a very compelling one. Using the fairly typical comparison of death to sleep, Hamlet speaks of the uncertainty of “what dreams will be dreamed in the sleep of death.” Only this keeps one from committing suicide, only this is the cause of the misfortunes of a long life. Death is a country from which not a single traveler has returned.
Hamlet seems to forget that he was talking to the ghost of his father. This can no longer be called a theatrical technique based on the forgetfulness of the audience. The audience could not forget about such an important moment as the appearance of a ghost. Hamlet could not forget about this either. His ostentatious unconsciousness emphasizes the insincerity of his judgments.
Hamlet clearly has a suicidal tendency, and at the same time he constantly finds some kind of psychological block that prevents him from taking the fatal step. At first it was God's prohibition to commit suicide, now the prince finds a more original reason. For this reason, he pretends that he has not personally met the traveler who returned from the land of death. (And Shakespeare, who actually never met any ghosts, gets the opportunity to express his own thoughts through Hamlet’s lips). Moreover, Hamlet shows that he is not a Christian at all! A Christian cannot help but know what will happen after death. Even if he only believes in it, he believes so strongly that he already knows. Hamlet himself recently spoke about heaven and hell (gehenna), but these, as it turns out, were nothing more than beautiful words. His constant mentions of God in the first act are similar to modern phrases like “God knows what,” where the Christian idea of God does not play any role and God can be easily replaced by the devil without changing the meaning of the expression in any way. God's prohibition to commit suicide was necessary in the first act - now it no longer matters.
The fear that the devil may be hiding under the guise of a ghost also looks more than doubtful. It must be admitted that Hamlet is simply delaying specific actions. Dr. Bright was right: a melancholic person is incapable of action. At least to a deliberate, rather than spontaneous one.
The meaning of the word conscience is of great importance. Now this layer means only “conscience”; in Shakespeare's time it also meant "meditation." The latter meaning has taken root in relation to the monologue “To be or not to be.” “So thinking makes us cowards” or “So conscience turns us all into cowards”? The combination of conscience and cowardice is characteristic of Shakespeare's works. According to V. Komarova, “there is no doubt that for the audience of Shakespeare’s era this word meant only “conscience.” Hamlet's phrase suddenly becomes close to the reasoning of Richard III, although the difference between the two characters is obvious. But it would be a mistake to believe that it is conscience that forces Hamlet to delay taking revenge. He is not at all like the hero of Chapman's later play "Revenge for Bussy d'Amboise", who, seeking to avenge his brother, constantly thinks about whether he has the right to this, and, having finally taken revenge, commits suicide. The whole tragedy of Shakespeare convincingly demonstrates that Hamlet has no doubt at all about the need for revenge, and it is precisely his own delaying the murder that torments him.
At the end of the monologue, there are still phrases related to Hamlet’s personal problem:
And so determined natural color
Withering away under the veneer of pale thoughts...
It is thinking that prevents Hamlet from acting. Subsequently, he will prove that when it is absent and an action must be performed immediately, the prince shows determination and courage.
After the monologue, Hamlet starts the same buffoonish conversation with Ophelia as he did with her father. It is obvious, of course, that he treats her completely differently. No wonder, as soon as he sees her, he says (it remains unclear whether Ophelia heard these words):
In your prayers, nymph,
Remember everything I have sinned against.
However, deep disappointment in his mother changed his attitude towards women (“marry a fool, because smart people know well what monsters you make of them”). He tells Ophelia that he loved her, then declares that he did not love her. Anticipating the fate of Desdemona, he, talking about Ophelia's future marriage, gives her a curse as a dowry: “Even if you are chaste as ice, pure as snow, you will not escape slander.” Hamlet claims that “we will have no more marriages,” for the third time he advises Ophelia to go to a monastery, after which he leaves her.
Ophelia does not doubt Hamlet's madness. Even during their conversation, she asked heaven to help him, to heal him. She deeply laments that the mind of a “nobleman, a fighter, a scientist” has been struck down, and compares this once powerful mind to cracked bells. It’s very difficult for her, “having seen the past, to see what is!”
Of course, Ophelia does not remember Hamlet as he really was, but as he seemed to her, as he probably seemed to himself.
Claudius and Polonius return. Experienced Claudius very correctly assesses Hamlet:
Love? It is not her that his dreams strive for;
And his speech, although there is little structure in it,
It wasn't delirium. In his soul
Dejection hatches something;
And I'm afraid that it might hatch
Danger...
He wants to send Hamlet to England to collect the “lost tribute.” Polonius advises the king to ensure that after the performance the Queen Mother asks Hamlet to “open up to her.” If he “locks himself up,” Hamlet, according to Polonius, should be sent to England or imprisoned somewhere.
In the next scene, Hamlet prepares the actors for the upcoming performance. According to the fair remark of A. Parfenov, “Hamlet is the director, partly the author, director and commentator of The Murder of Gonzago.” His communication with actors both earlier and in this instruction allows Shakespeare to express theoretical views on theatrical activity for the only time in his entire work. Expressed through the mouth of a Danish prince.
Hamlet's subsequent conversation with Horatio is very important. Already mentioned above are the words spoken by Gertrude to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the words that there are no people in the world more kind to Hamlet than them. If the queen was right, Hamlet's attitude has now changed. Switching to "you", he says to Horatio:
Horatio, you are the best of people,
With whom I happened to get along.
Hamlet confirms that the changes occurred because he became different:
As soon as my spirit began to choose freely
And distinguish people, his election
Tagged you...
It must be said that Horatio does not play any significant role in the development of the plot. This has given rise to absurd attempts to attribute hidden meaning to it. In fact, Horatio is only needed to show that Hamlet has a friend, a person whom the prince completely trusts. Hamlet really needed Horatio.
Before the start of the performance, when almost all the characters appear, Hamlet again takes on the role of a jester. He behaves extremely frivolously with Ophelia (see the phrase: “It’s a wonderful idea to lie between a girl’s legs”). It even caused some people to be surprised that Ophelia didn't slap Hamlet. We must not, however, forget: Ophelia is talking to her beloved man, who is a prince and whom she, with deep sorrow, considers crazy.
The performance begins with a pantomime depicting its plot - a technique that was already outdated by the time of the production of Hamlet. Then begins a dialogue built on rhymed verse between the actor-king and the actor-queen (as they are called in the text both quarto and folio, despite the fact that Gonzago was a duke). They sing of love for each other, but very quickly the king starts talking about his upcoming death and the fact that his wife may live with another husband. The Queen expressively denies this. The king believes that she really thinks so, but remarks:
You rejected a new marriage in advance,
But I will die - and this thought will die.
The Queen swears:
And here and there let sorrow be with me,
If, having become a widow, I will become a wife again!
“What if she breaks it now!”
Hamlet speaks.
The king, on the contrary, values the oath very highly, but, being tired, asks his wife to leave him and falls asleep without waiting for her to leave.
During the pause, Hamlet asks his mother how she likes the play. And Gertrude, who may have made similar vows to her late husband, replies: “This woman is too generous with her assurances, in my opinion.” Claudius is interested in the title of the play, and Hamlet, instead of the real one, pronounces what eventually became famous: “The Mousetrap.” Here he speaks of a figurative meaning, since such a name has nothing to do with the plot of the play. In fact, Hamlet actually prepared a mousetrap for Claudius. Later, mistakenly believing that the king is hiding behind the carpet, the prince calls him a rat.
The actor playing the killer appears; Hamlet explains that “this is one Lucian, the king’s nephew,” receiving Ophelia’s praise: “You are an excellent chorus, my prince.”
Lucian pours poison into the sleeping man's ear, just as Claudius did with Hamlet's father. Hamlet continues his comments: "He poisons him in the garden for the sake of his power... Now you will see how the murderer wins the love of Gonzaga's wife."
However, no one manages to see this. Claudius has already witnessed a murder during a pantomime, but he cannot stand it a second time. He says: “Give me some fire here. - Let's leave!
Hamlet receives complete confirmation. In his opinion, he “would vouch for the words of the ghost with a thousand gold coins.” Left alone with Horatio, a pleased Hamlet asks: “Wouldn’t I get a place in the troupe of actors, my sir?” “With half share,” Horatio replies. “With the whole, in my opinion,” the prince objects.
The hint is obvious: Richard Burbage, like Shakespeare himself, had a whole share in the troupe.
Hamlet's subsequent conversation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is of a completely different nature than their previous conversations. The theme of the flute is especially important.
Hamlet asks Guildenstern to play the flute, and Guildenstern refuses several times, explaining that he does not know how to play it. Hamlet reproaches both of them for doing a “wicked thing” by trying to play on him. However, this is unrealistic: “Although you can torment me, you cannot play on me.” Subsequently, Hamlet will tell Gertrude that he believes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern “like two vipers.”
In the next scene, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern agree to Claudius's proposal to go with Hamlet to England.
Then Claudius, left alone, prays, lamenting the sin he has committed. Entering Hamlet has every opportunity to kill him, but praying Claudius, according to Christian concepts, must go to heaven - “this is a reward, not revenge.” Hamlet wants Claudius to die
When he is drunk or angry,
Or in the incestuous pleasures of the bed;
In blasphemy, at a game, at something,
What is not good?
And Claudius will go to hell.
Hamlet’s “Christianity” has already been discussed above. All this is just another excuse.
Meanwhile, if Hamlet had killed Claudius then, he would have left alive not only himself, but also six other people, including his mother Gertrude and unfortunate Ophelia.
Knowing that Hamlet is going to come to his mother, Polonius advises Gertrude to be “stricter with him,” while he hides behind the carpet.
What destroyed Polonius was his natural desire to save the queen. When it begins to seem to Gertrude that Hamlet is capable of killing her, and she exclaims: “Help!”, Polonius also shouts: “Hey, people! Help, help! Convinced that Claudius is hiding behind the carpet, Hamlet stabs the carpet and kills Polonius.
This is one of the most important moments of the tragedy. Hamlet commits murder, albeit indirectly (as already mentioned, the murder of Claudius, according to the laws of blood feud, was not considered a crime). When Vladimir Vysotsky wrote in his poem “My Hamlet”:
And I equalized myself with murder
With the one with whom I lay down in the same ground -
he, of course, meant the murder of Claudius, but these lines are much more suitable for the murder of Polonius.
Polonius was not a very attractive and at the same time comical person. He did not deserve death, and even more so Hamlet did not have the slightest reason to kill him. However, Hamlet does not repent at all when it turns out that he killed Polonius:
You pathetic, fussy buffoon, goodbye!
I aimed at the highest; accept your lot;
That's how dangerous it is to be too fast.
Is Hamlet really so different from Richard III, who anticipates Nietzscheanism?
A little later the prince, however, says:
As for him,
Then I mourn; but heaven commanded
They punished me and me him,
So that I become their scourge and servant.
But can this claim to the role of a servant of heaven be considered sincere? Hamlet only tries to look better in the eyes of his mother, whom he seeks to influence. The prince achieves this, and subsequently Gertrude tells Claudius: “He is crying about what he has done.” But when Claudius tries to find out from Hamlet where the corpse of Polonius is hidden, he hears in response a buffoon speech: “he has just gathered a certain diet of political worms,” and the jokes do not end there. It is also significant that immediately after the murder of Polonius, obviously forgetting about it, Hamlet begins a moral denunciation of his mother. He is cruel to her, who repeatedly asks her to stop talking, and he himself says that he wants to break her heart. Hamlet expresses to Gertrude what he has been thinking about for a long time, and he expresses it rudely and harshly. He points her to a huge carpet depicting the Danish kings in chronological order (such a carpet actually hung in the royal Kronborg Castle, and Shakespeare clearly had good information about Denmark from one of the actors, since in 1586 one of the London theater troupes toured there ). Of course, Polonius was hiding behind this carpet. Hamlet invites his mother to compare the portrait of Claudius with the portrait of his father.
In Hamlet's words about Claudius:
The thief who stole power and the state,
Who pulled off the precious crown
And put it in his pocket! -
They often see an indication that Hamlet is the legitimate heir to the throne, and Claudius usurped his power. But Hamlet, of course, is talking about the crown that Claudius stole from his murdered brother. Before the establishment of a traditional monarchy, power after the death of a ruler was often transferred not to his son, but to his brother (as, for example, it was in Kievan Rus). After Hamlet Sr. killed the Norwegian king, power went not to his son Fortinbras, but to his brother.
The conversation, difficult for Gertrude and necessary for Hamlet, splashing out his emotions, is unexpectedly interrupted by the appearance of a ghost. Apparently, the ghost wanted to show his son that he should fight not with his mother, but with the murderer Claudius. Hamlet begins to talk to him (although the ghost does not answer anything, and then leaves), calls on Gertrude to look at him. However, Gertrude does not see the ghost. According to the existing belief, the ghost was visible only to those to whom it wanted to appear (this belief was also used by Shakespeare in Macbeth). Naturally, Gertrude finds in her son’s behavior yet another proof of his madness.
However, Hamlet does not want his mother to think he is crazy. He says:
Do not anoint your soul with flattering ointment,
That this is my nonsense, and not your shame...
Bearing in mind Gertrude's close relationship with her current husband, Hamlet advises her to abstain today, which will help her to abstain in the future. Theater critic J. Aget reproached John Gielgud for the fact that Hamlet’s accusatory monologue in the scene with his mother became like a “lecture on moderation” for the famous actor. Actually, the monologue in the play ends with just such a lecture.
Already ready to travel to England, Hamlet receives practically an order from Claudius to go there and does not protest at all.
Just before leaving, Hamlet meets the army of Fortinbras, which is passing through Danish territory, heading to Poland. He learns from the captain that the Norwegians are going to fight just for a piece of land. In his last monologue, the prince calls the one great who “enters into a fierce argument over a blade of grass when honor is affected.” He still worries about his slowness:
How meth exposes everything around
And my sluggish revenge is hastening!
Hamlet ends his monologue with the words:
Oh my thought, from now on you must
Be bloody, or dust is your price!
In the absence of Hamlet (thanks to the construction of the plot, Richard Burbage, who played the most difficult role, had the opportunity to rest), the main thing became the fate of Polonius’ children.
Ophelia, whose father was killed by her loved one, could not stand this shock. Her real madness became, as it were, a reflection of Hamlet's ostentatious madness. Ophelia, who has lost her mind, sings a lot. Her Valentine's song of seduction raised various speculations about Ophelia's relationship with Hamlet. However, absolutely nothing in the play suggests that Ophelia could have had an intimate relationship with the prince. How right Horatio was when he told the queen that Ophelia “can sow dangerous doubts in malicious minds.”
Laertes clearly tried, when leaving for Paris, to escape from his father’s tutelage. However, upon learning of Polonius's death, he immediately left Paris and returned to Denmark. Unlike Hamlet, Laertes turned to the people for support, and his comrades are ready to proclaim him king. They break down the door to the room where Claudius is, but then Laertes asks his companions to leave and is left alone with Claudius and Gertrude. “You vile king, return my father to me!” - Laertes exclaims. He wants to know exactly how Polonius died. Gertrude is the first to say that “the king has nothing to do with it”; This is confirmed by Claudius, pleased that Laertes is going to take revenge only on the guilty. However, in the presence of his wife, Claudius, of course, cannot mention Hamlet. Ophelia comes again and is let in by the Danes standing outside the door. Shocked by the sight of his mad sister, Laertes utters very poetic phrases:
Rose of May!
Child, sister, my Ophelia!
However, he also says something else:
Be sane and call for vengeance,
You would have touched less.
Claudius manages to lead Laertes into a one-on-one conversation.
At the same time, some sailors bring Horatio a letter from Hamlet, which says that the ship where the prince was sailing was attacked by pirates, and he himself jumped over to them. The pirates, he said, treated him “like merciful robbers.” Hamlet asks Horatio to arrange for the sailors access to the king (he also sent letters to Claudius and Gertrude), and then meet him to hear the words that will make him speechless.
Claudius has already informed Laertes that Hamlet killed Polonius. He emphasizes that Laertes, who killed his father, “threatened me too,” and calls for him to perceive himself as a friend. Laertes does not object, but asks:
Why didn't you pursue these
Such lawless and criminal actions,
As prudence requires
And safety?
Claudius explains this for two reasons: his affection for the queen, who loves her son very much, and the love that the common people feel for Hamlet (this once again emphasizes the incorrectness of Hamlet’s actions, who, unlike Laertes, did not resort to popular support).
The messenger brings Hamlet's letters to the king and queen. Claudius reads the letter addressed to him out loud - so that Laertes can hear it. Naturally, Hamlet is not as frank as in his letter to Horatio.
He only reports that he was “landed naked in your kingdom,” and promises to explain the circumstances of his return in a personal meeting. Claudius recalls how a certain Norman came to Denmark, an excellent swordsman who knew Laertes and highly appreciated his fencing skills.
When Hamlet heard about this, he really wanted Laertes to “come back and fight with him.” Now that both are in Denmark, Claudius invites Laertes to carry out his revenge by fighting Hamlet with a sharpened blade.
Here even the mother will not see the intent,
But just a case -
says the king (this is clearly very important to him). Laertes willingly agrees to Claudius's proposal and further strengthens the king's plan by planning to smear the blade with mortal ointment, which he bought from a healer.
There is some kind of tragic irony in all this: Hamlet, seeking revenge for the murder of his father, himself becomes a victim of exactly the same revenge.
The queen arrives and reports that Ophelia has drowned. Gertrude describes this tragic event in such detail, as if she herself was present at it (which, of course, was not the case - no one was present). This is largely based on the Queen's knowledge of the final details of the death; the statement that Ophelia did not realize what she was doing, that is, did not commit suicide, is based on Gertrude's sincere belief. Thanks to this, Ophelia was able to be buried in a common cemetery.
The fifth act begins in this cemetery. The first to appear are two gravediggers (in the original, two clowns). Then Hamlet and Horatio come; Without noticing this, one of the gravediggers sends the second one to Yogen to bring a “bottle of vodka.” The Danish name Jogen corresponds to the English name John, and next to the Globe was the tavern of "deaf John".
Hamlet is amazed at how calmly the gravedigger handles dead bodies: “This skull had a tongue, and could sing once; and this guy throws him to the ground...” However, Hamlet himself speaks of dead bodies quite ironically (“and now this is my lady Rot”). It is clearly alien to the Christian concept of corpses awaiting the resurrection of their souls on Judgment Day. His thoughts are very close to materialistic scientific views. At the beginning of Act 4, Hamlet told Claudius: “A man can catch a fish with the worm that ate the king, and eat the fish that ate the worm.” But this was part of a buffoon's speech and clearly constituted a mockery of Claudius. Now Hamlet talks about Alexander the Great: “Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander turns to dust; dust is earth; clay is made from earth; and why can’t they plug up a beer barrel with this clay into which he turned?” The words follow:
The sovereign Caesar, turned into decay,
Perhaps he went to paint the walls.
When Hamlet sees the skull of Yorick, the former king's jester, it evokes in him a sad memory of a man he knew as a child, but Hamlet's attitude towards dead bodies does not change and his thoughts about Alexander the Great begin just after this.
The gravedigger’s answer to Hamlet’s question: “How long have you been a gravedigger?” has generated a lot of commentary. It turns out that this happened on the day when Hamlet's father defeated Fortinbras' father, and it was on this day that Hamlet himself was born. However, a little later the phrase is uttered: “I have been a gravedigger here since I was young, for thirty years now.”
It turns out that Hamlet is thirty years old! But he had not yet graduated from the University of Wittenberg; Laertes spoke about his youth in the first act, talking with Ophelia (“at the dawn of spring”). The thing is that Shakespeare used two different words - grave-maker and sexton. The word grave-maker literally means "grave-maker"; the word sexton, now meaning “gravedigger” (though not in its main meaning), simply meant a person working in a cemetery. In the original, the current gravedigger says that he did this work when he was a boy. Then, of course, no one would force him to dig a grave.
So, he has been working in the cemetery for thirty years, since childhood, and became a gravedigger on the day Hamlet was born (that is, it was then that he dug his first grave). From this, of course, it does not in any way follow that Hamlet is thirty years old.
Hamlet did not expect that he would have to attend Ophelia's funeral. The priest considers Ophelia's death dark; according to him, “we expanded the burial rite as much as possible.” The priests refuse to sing the requiem.
Laertes orders the coffin to be lowered; He says:
And let from this immaculate flesh
The violets will grow.
Listen, callous shepherd,
My sister will glorify the creator,
When you howl in agony.
Gertrude throws flowers into the grave and mournfully says that she wanted to call Ophelia her daughter-in-law, to clean her wedding bed, and not the grave. Laertes curses the one who took away Ophelia’s “high intelligence” (meaning, of course, Hamlet), and then jumps into the grave to hug his sister for the last time. Hamlet, previously unnoticed by anyone who came to the funeral, also jumps there. Judging by the fact that this episode is mentioned in the elegy on the death of Burbage, the leading actor of the troupe played it brilliantly.
A fight breaks out between Hamlet and Laertes; they are separated. Already emerging from the grave, Hamlet utters the famous phrase that his love surpasses the love of forty thousand brothers. Only now does it become clear that he really loved Ophelia; perhaps he himself understands this only now. At the castle, Hamlet tells Horatio about what happened to him on the ship. He stole and printed a letter in which Claudius, frightening the English king with Hamlet, ordered the execution of the prince. Hamlet wrote a new letter, according to which the bearers, that is, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, should be executed. The presence of his father's seal made the new letter completely reliable. Hamlet, by his own admission, performs even this seemingly conscious act spontaneously:
My mind has not yet composed a prologue,
How to start the game...
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern didn't deserve to die. Contrary to what many people think, they did not betray Hamlet. They did not and could not have any idea that Claudius was the enemy of the prince; Guildenstern sincerely admitted to Hamlet that they had been sent for. After Hamlet killed Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern could not help but recognize Hamlet's danger. They knew nothing about the contents of the letter sent to England.
Hamlet speaks rather arrogantly about his former friends sailing to their death:
It's dangerous for an insignificant one to get caught
Between lunges and flaming blades
Mighty enemies.
The idea of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as characters of the same type (something like Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky in Gogol’s “The Inspector General”), a symbol of a vicious society, is incorrect. It's just based on the fact that these characters appear together all the time. However, the confident Rosencrantz is very different from the much softer Guildenstern. Hamlet is visited by a certain Osric. This seemingly insignificant character embodies a parody of the “new aristocrat” (as Hamlet says, “he has much land, and fertile”). Osric rather floridly and, of course, on behalf of the king, calls on Hamlet to enter into a duel with Laertes. Horatio believes that Hamlet will lose. Hamlet, on the contrary, expects victory, but, as often happens in Shakespeare’s plays, he experiences a premonition: “... you cannot imagine what a heaviness is here in my heart,” Hamlet admits to Horatio and immediately adds: “ ...but it’s all the same.” “This, of course, is nonsense,” he continues, “but it’s like some kind of premonition that, perhaps, would confuse a woman.” “If your mind doesn’t want something, then listen to it,” Horatio advises his friend, but Hamlet turns to jokes: “Not at all; we are not afraid of omens; and there is a special purpose in the death of the sparrow.” Enter Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes and many others. Hamlet apologizes to Laertes, explaining his actions as madness. Laertes also agrees to reconciliation, however, not knowing how to lie, he does not express his thoughts too clearly.
Claudius decides to intensify his criminal plans and prepares a poisoned goblet for the prince, but this leads to completely unexpected consequences: Gertrude decides to drink to her son’s success. Claudius tries to stop his wife, but he fails. Hamlet doesn’t want to drink yet. Laertes wounds him with a poisoned rapier, then in the fight they exchange rapiers. The fact is that a participant in a fencing match always sought to knock out or snatch a weapon from the opponent’s hands. Apparently, both managed to do this; while picking up the rapiers from the ground, they accidentally exchanged them. And now Hamlet wounds Laertes with the fatal weapon. Claudius orders the fencers to be separated, but Hamlet wants to continue. Horatio is amazed that both participants are bleeding (after all, the fight was friendly) and asks Hamlet: “What’s the matter?” Osric asks Laertes the same thing. Laertes, clearly tormented by his conscience, replies:
The sandpiper was caught in his own net, Osric;
I myself am punished by my treachery.
Gertrude has fallen and Hamlet asks, “What is the matter with the queen?” Claudius tries to argue that “seeing the blood, she fainted.” However, Gertrude did not lose consciousness and before her death she says that she was “poisoned.” Addressing her son, she pronounces the word “drink” three times (in the original even four times). The fallen Laertes tells Hamlet about the poisoned rapier. His story ends with the words:
Coral... the king is guilty.
Both by the murder of Polonius and by escaping to the pirate ship, Hamlet has already proven his ability to perform spontaneous actions. It is not surprising that he almost immediately hits the king with a rapier. Hearing the general cry of “Treason!”, Claudius tries to find support. He calls:
Friends, help! I'm just wounded.
However, Hamlet finally puts an end to it. Laertes calls the retribution deserved, and before his death he says:
Let us forgive each other, noble Hamlet.
May you be innocent in my death
And my father, as I am in yours.
Apparently, it was no coincidence that it was Laertes who killed Hamlet. If the prototype of Polonius was William Cecil, Lord Berkeley, then Laertes, despite all the dissimilarity of characters, inevitably corresponds to the son of the Lord Chancellor Robert Cecil, who played a large role in the trial of Essex and other conspirators.
But the hero is a different person, and Hamlet wishes the dead Laertes:
Be clear before heaven!
He expects his own death; if not for death, he would have told a lot “to you, tremulous and pale, silently contemplating the game.” This is already a clear hint to the audience watching the performance. What could Hamlet (or rather, Richard Burbage) tell them, who already know everything about the play? There is only one answer: about the Essex conspiracy.
Shakespeare returns to the plot again. Hamlet, apparently, told Horatio a lot, if not everything, and now asks the survivor to tell the others the whole truth. Horatio replies: “It won’t happen.” He is more an ancient Roman than a Dane (from the phrase with which his role began, it follows that he is not a Dane, but who in the audience remembers this?). The hint is clear: the audience knew about the penchant of the ancient Romans for suicide, at least from Shakespeare’s recent tragedy “Julius Caesar.” Horatio himself says that there is moisture left in the cup.
Hamlet objects:
If you are a man
Give me the cup...
Oh friend, what a wounded name,
Hide the secret everything, it would remain for me!
Can we consider that Hamlet restored the harmony disrupted by Claudius? Not only did Polonius's entire family perish; The Danish royal family was also destroyed. The most appropriate ending seems to be the one with which Laurence Olivier's film ends: the camera shows the empty halls and corridors of Elsinore for a long time.
But, of course, Shakespeare could not go for a similar ending. This was impossible purely technically: there was no curtain, and someone had to take away the corpses so that the actors who played the dead did not have to get up. A march is heard in the distance and gunshots are heard offstage. As Osric reports, Fortinbras returned from Poland in victory and fires a volley in honor of the English ambassadors.
Hamlet dies; he would never be able to learn news from England, which, however, was not difficult to guess: the ambassadors had arrived to report the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He predicts the election of Fortinbras as king of Denmark and gives him his dying vote. Hamlet asks Horatio to convey this to Fortinbras and reveal to him the reason for all events. The prince's last words: “Then - silence.”
This phrase indicates that Hamlet no longer doubts what will happen after death; he knows that after her there will be nothing. Such an idea may seem too new for 1601; however, even earlier Montaigne wrote: “What once has lost its existence no longer exists,” and in ancient times, Lucretius, Montaigne’s beloved, spoke even more clearly: “When you die, you will not exist at all.”
However, Hamlet's last sentence has an ambiguous meaning. It can be translated differently: “About the rest - silence.” What should the actor playing Horatio be silent about if his hero is tasked with revealing to Fortinbras the cause of all events? The answer is still the same: about the Essex conspiracy.
It is characteristic that Fortinbras, who appears, not yet knowing the circumstances of what happened, gives military honor not to King Claudius of Denmark, but only to Hamlet. Before this he states:
I have been given rights to this kingdom,
And my lot tells me to declare them.
The new king of Denmark should clearly be a foreigner, a Norwegian prince. Two years after the premiere of Hamlet, Queen Elizabeth will die, and her throne will be taken by the Scottish king James VI Stuart (in England - James I).
In conclusion, it is worth saying about the names that were used in the play. Of these, only five (Hamlet, Gertrude, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Osric) are Danish in character. The Danish name, of course, also includes the name Yorick, but the royal jester died long ago and is not among the characters.
The names (or rather, surnames) of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern deserve special attention. These were common and noble surnames that appear in various documents. Somehow Shakespeare managed to find out that they were on the list of Danes who studied at the University of Wittenberg (obviously this is what inspired him). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were among the ancestors of the outstanding astronomer Tycho Brahe.
The surname Guildenstern also found its way into Russian history. When Boris Godunov decided to marry his daughter to the brother of the Danish king, he arrived in Moscow in the fall of 1602. His retinue included Axel and Laxman Guildenstern. Axel Guildenstern left notes about this trip.
Ophelia's name is borrowed from a pastoral novel by the Italian writer Sannazzaro (late 15th century).
Apparently, the name Polonia, which has nothing to do with Denmark, also has a literary character. Officers and soldiers (Bernardo, Francisco, Marcellus) bear Romanesque names. This, of course, does not indicate their origin; Such liberties were characteristic of the drama of that time.
The name Horatio is an Italianized version of the name of the ancient Roman poet Horace. Claudius bears the name of one of the Roman emperors, and it is not at all clear why Laertes got the name that Odysseus’s father bore.
Dramaturgy of the 16th - 17th centuries was an integral and perhaps the most important part of the literature of that time. This type of literary creativity was the closest and most understandable to the broad masses; it was a spectacle that made it possible to convey to the viewer the feelings and thoughts of the author. One of the most prominent representatives of dramaturgy of that time, who is read and reread to this day, performances based on his works are staged, and philosophical concepts are analyzed, is William Shakespeare.
The genius of the English poet, actor and playwright lies in the ability to show the realities of life, to penetrate the soul of every viewer, to find in it a response to his philosophical statements through feelings familiar to every person. The theatrical action of that time took place on a platform in the middle of the square; the actors could descend into the “hall” during the play. The viewer became, as it were, a participant in everything that was happening. Nowadays, such an effect of presence is unattainable even when using 3D technologies. The more important the word of the author, the language and style of the work received in the theater. Shakespeare's talent is manifested largely in his linguistic manner of presenting the plot. Simple and somewhat ornate, it differs from the language of the streets, allowing the viewer to rise above everyday life, to stand for a while on a par with the characters in the play, people of the upper class. And the genius is confirmed by the fact that this has not lost its significance in later times - we get the opportunity to become for some time accomplices in the events of medieval Europe.
Many of his contemporaries, and after them subsequent generations, considered the tragedy “Hamlet - Prince of Denmark” to be the pinnacle of Shakespeare’s creativity. This work of a recognized English classic has become one of the most significant for Russian literary thought. It is no coincidence that Hamlet's tragedy has been translated into Russian more than forty times. This interest is caused not only by the phenomenon of medieval drama and the literary talent of the author, which is undoubtedly. Hamlet is a work that reflects the “eternal image” of a seeker of truth, a moral philosopher and a man who has stepped above his era. The galaxy of such people, which began with Hamlet and Don Quixote, continued in Russian literature with the images of “superfluous people” by Onegin and Pechorin, and further in the works of Turgenev, Dobrolyubov, Dostoevsky. This line is native to the Russian seeking soul.
History of creation - The tragedy of Hamlet in the romanticism of the 17th century
Just as many of Shakespeare’s works are based on short stories from early medieval literature, he borrowed the plot of the tragedy Hamlet from the Icelandic chronicles of the 12th century. However, this plot is not something original for the “dark time”. The theme of the struggle for power, regardless of moral standards, and the theme of revenge are present in many works of all times. Based on this, Shakespeare's romanticism created the image of a man protesting against the foundations of his time, looking for a way out of these shackles of conventions to the norms of pure morality, but who himself is a hostage of existing rules and laws. The crown prince, a romantic and philosopher, who asks the eternal questions of existence and, at the same time, is forced in reality to fight in the way that was customary at that time - “he is not his own master, his hands are tied by his birth” (Act I, scene III ), and this causes an internal protest in him.
(Antique engraving - London, 17th century)
England, in the year the tragedy was written and staged, was experiencing a turning point in its feudal history (1601), which is why the play contains that certain gloom, real or imaginary decline in the state - “Something has rotted in the Kingdom of Denmark” (Act I, Scene IV ). But we are more interested in the eternal questions “about good and evil, about fierce hatred and holy love,” which are so clearly and so ambiguously spelled out by the genius of Shakespeare. In full accordance with romanticism in art, the play contains heroes of clearly defined moral categories, an obvious villain, a wonderful hero, there is a love line, but the author goes further. The romantic hero refuses to follow the canons of time in his revenge. One of the key figures of the tragedy, Polonius, does not appear to us in an unambiguous light. The theme of betrayal is discussed in several storylines and is also presented to the viewer. From the obvious betrayal of the king and the queen’s disloyalty to the memory of her late husband, to the trivial betrayal of student friends who are not averse to finding out secrets from the prince for the king’s mercy.
Description of the tragedy (the plot of the tragedy and its main features)
Ilsinore, the castle of the Danish kings, the night guard with Horatio, Hamlet's friend, meets the ghost of the deceased king. Horatio tells Hamlet about this meeting and he decides to personally meet with his father's shadow. The ghost tells the prince the terrible story of his death. The king's death turns out to be a vile murder committed by his brother Claudius. After this meeting, a turning point occurs in Hamlet’s consciousness. What is learned is superimposed on the fact of the too-quick wedding of the king’s widow, Hamlet’s mother, and his murderer brother. Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of revenge, but is in doubt. He must see for himself. Feigning madness, Hamlet observes everything. Polonius, the king's advisor and the father of Hamlet's beloved, tries to explain to the king and queen such changes in the prince as a rejected love. Previously, he forbade his daughter Ophelia to accept Hamlet's advances. These prohibitions destroy the idyll of love and subsequently lead to depression and insanity of the girl. The king makes his attempts to find out the thoughts and plans of his stepson; he is tormented by doubts and his sin. Hamlet's former student friends, hired by him, are with him inseparably, but to no avail. The shock of what he learned makes Hamlet think even more about the meaning of life, about such categories as freedom and morality, about the eternal question of the immortality of the soul, the frailty of existence.
Meanwhile, a troupe of traveling actors appears in Ilsinore, and Hamlet persuades them to insert several lines into the theatrical action, exposing the king of fratricide. During the course of the performance, Claudius betrays himself with confusion, Hamlet’s doubts about his guilt are dispelled. He tries to talk to his mother, throw accusations at her, but the ghost that appears forbids him to take revenge on his mother. A tragic accident aggravates the tension in the royal chambers - Hamlet kills Polonius, who hid behind the curtains out of curiosity during this conversation, mistaking him for Claudius. Hamlet was sent to England to hide these unfortunate accidents. His spy friends are going with him. Claudius gives them a letter for the King of England asking them to execute the prince. Hamlet, who managed to accidentally read the letter, makes corrections in it. As a result, traitors are executed, and he returns to Denmark.
Laertes, the son of Polonius, also returns to Denmark; the tragic news of the death of his sister Ophelia as a result of her insanity due to love, as well as the murder of his father, pushes him into an alliance with Claudius in the matter of revenge. Claudius provokes a sword fight between two young men, Laertes' blade is deliberately poisoned. Without stopping there, Claudius also poisons the wine in order to make Hamlet drunk in case of victory. During the duel, Hamlet is wounded by a poisoned blade, but finds mutual understanding with Laertes. The duel continues, during which the opponents exchange swords, now Laertes is also wounded with a poisoned sword. Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude, cannot stand the tension of the duel and drinks poisoned wine for her son's victory. Claudius is also killed, leaving only Hamlet's only true friend Horace alive. The troops of the Norwegian prince enter the capital of Denmark, who occupies the Danish throne.
Main characters
As can be seen from the entire development of the plot, the theme of revenge fades into the background before the moral quest of the protagonist. Committing revenge is impossible for him in the expression that is customary in that society. Even after being convinced of his uncle’s guilt, he does not become his executioner, but only his accuser. In contrast, Laertes makes a deal with the king; for him, revenge is above all, he follows the traditions of his time. The love line in the tragedy is only an additional means of showing the moral images of that time and highlighting Hamlet’s spiritual search. The main characters of the play are Prince Hamlet and the king's advisor Polonius. It is in the moral foundations of these two people that the conflict of time is expressed. Not the conflict of good and evil, but the difference in the moral levels of two positive characters is the main line of the play, brilliantly shown by Shakespeare.
An intelligent, devoted and honest servant of the king and fatherland, a caring father and a respected citizen of his country. He is sincerely trying to help the king understand Hamlet, he is sincerely trying to understand Hamlet himself. His moral principles are impeccable at the level of that time. Sending his son to study in France, he instructs him in the rules of behavior, which can still be cited without changes today, they are so wise and universal for any time. Worried about his daughter’s moral character, he admonishes her to refuse Hamlet’s advances, explaining the class difference between them and not excluding the possibility that the prince’s attitude towards the girl is not serious. At the same time, according to his moral views corresponding to that time, there is nothing prejudiced in such frivolity on the part of the young man. With his distrust of the prince and the will of his father, he destroys their love. For the same reasons, he does not trust his own son, sending a servant to him as a spy. His surveillance plan is simple - to find acquaintances and, having slightly denigrated his son, lure out the frank truth about his behavior away from home. Overhearing a conversation between an angry son and mother in the royal chambers is also not something wrong for him. With all his actions and thoughts, Polonius appears to be an intelligent and kind person; even in Hamlet’s madness, he sees his rational thoughts and gives them their due. But he is a typical representative of society, which puts so much pressure on Hamlet with its deceit and duplicity. And this is a tragedy that is understandable not only in modern society, but also in the London public of the early 17th century. Such duplicity causes protest with its presence in the modern world.
A hero with a strong spirit and an extraordinary mind, searching and doubting, who has become one step above the rest of society in his morality. He is able to look at himself from the outside, he is able to analyze those around him and analyze his thoughts and actions. But he is also a product of that era and that connects him. Traditions and society impose a certain stereotype of behavior on him, which he can no longer accept. Based on the plot of revenge, the whole tragedy of the situation is shown when a young man sees evil not just in one vile act, but in the entire society in which such actions are justified. This young man calls on himself to live in accordance with the highest morality, responsibility for all his actions. The family tragedy only makes him think more about moral values. Such a thinking person cannot help but raise universal philosophical questions for himself. The famous monologue “To be or not to be” is only the tip of such reasoning, which is woven into all his dialogues with friends and enemies, in conversations with random people. But the imperfection of society and the environment still pushes him to impulsive, often unjustified actions, which are then difficult for him and ultimately lead to death. After all, the guilt in the death of Ophelia and the accidental mistake in the murder of Polonius and the inability to understand Laertes’ grief oppresses him and fetters him with a chain.
Laertes, Ophelia, Claudius, Gertrude, Horatio
All these persons are introduced into the plot as Hamlet’s entourage and characterize ordinary society, positive and correct in the understanding of that time. Even considering them from a modern point of view, one can recognize their actions as logical and consistent. The struggle for power and adultery, revenge for a murdered father and a girl's first love, enmity with neighboring states and the acquisition of lands as a result of knightly tournaments. And only Hamlet stands head and shoulders above this society, bogged down to the waist in the tribal traditions of succession to the throne. Hamlet's three friends - Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - are representatives of the nobility, courtiers. For two of them, spying on a friend is not something wrong, and only one remains a faithful listener and interlocutor, a smart adviser. An interlocutor, but nothing more. Hamlet is left alone before his fate, society and the entire kingdom.
Analysis - the idea of the tragedy of the Danish prince Hamlet
Shakespeare's main idea was the desire to show psychological portraits of his contemporaries based on the feudalism of the "dark times", a new generation growing up in society that could change the world for the better. Competent, searching and freedom-loving. It is no coincidence that in the play Denmark is called a prison, which, according to the author, was the entire society of that time. But Shakespeare's genius was expressed in his ability to describe everything in halftones, without slipping into the grotesque. Most of the characters are positive people and respected according to the canons of that time; they reason quite sensibly and fairly.
Hamlet is shown as an introspective man, spiritually strong, but still bound by conventions. The inability to act, the inability, makes him similar to the “superfluous people” of Russian literature. But it carries within itself a charge of moral purity and the desire of society for the better. The genius of this work lies in the fact that all these issues are relevant in the modern world, in all countries and on all continents, regardless of the political system. And the language and stanza of the English playwright captivate with their perfection and originality, forcing you to reread the works several times, turn to plays, listen to productions, look for something new, hidden in the depths of centuries.
The Danish feudal lord Gorvendil became famous for his strength and courage. His fame aroused the envy of the Norwegian king Koller, who challenged him to a duel. They agreed that all the wealth of the vanquished would go to the winner. The duel ended in victory for Gorvendil, who killed Koller and received all his property. Then the Danish king Rerik gave his daughter Geruta as a wife to Gorvendil. From this marriage Amlet was born.Gorvendil had a brother, Fengon, who was jealous of his success and had a secret enmity towards him. They both jointly ruled Jutland. Fengon began to fear that Gorwendil would take advantage of King Rerik’s favor and seize power over all of Jutland. Despite the fact that there were insufficient grounds for such suspicion, Fengon decided to get rid of a possible rival. During one feast, he openly attacked Gorvendil and killed him in the presence of all the courtiers. To justify the murder, he stated that he was defending the honor of Geruta, who had been insulted by her husband. Although this was a lie, no one began to refute his explanation. Dominion over Jutland passed to Fengon, who married Geruta. Before this, there was no closeness between Fengon and Geruta.
Amlet was still very young at that moment. However, Fengon feared that, as an adult, Amleth would take revenge on him for the death of his father. The young prince was smart and cunning. He guessed his uncle Fengon's fears. And in order to avert any suspicion of secret intentions against Fengon, Amleth decided to pretend to be crazy. He soiled himself with mud and ran through the streets screaming wildly. Some of the courtiers began to guess that Amleth was only pretending to be mad. They advised that Amlet should meet with a beautiful girl sent to him, who was entrusted with seducing him with her caresses and discovering that he was by no means crazy. But one of the courtiers warned Amleth. In addition, it turned out that the girl who was chosen for this purpose was in love with Amleth. She also made it clear to him that they wanted to verify the authenticity of his madness. Thus, the first attempt to trap Amleth failed.
Then one of the courtiers suggested testing Amleth in this way: Fengon would report that he was leaving, Amleth would be brought together with his mother, and perhaps he would reveal his secret plans to her, and Fengon’s adviser would overhear their conversation. However, Amlet guessed that all this was not without reason: when he came to his mother, he behaved like a madman, crowed a rooster and jumped on the blanket, waving his arms. But then he felt that someone was hidden under the blanket. Drawing his sword, he immediately killed the king’s adviser, who was under the blanket, then cut his corpse into pieces and threw it into a sewer. Having accomplished all this, Amleth returned to his mother and began to reproach her for betraying Gorvendil and marrying her husband’s murderer. Gerutha repented of her guilt, and then Amleth revealed to her that he wanted to take revenge on Fengon. Geruta blessed his intention.
The spy was killed, and Fengon did not find out anything this time either. But Amleth's rampage frightened him, and he decided to get rid of him once and for all. To this end, he sent him, accompanied by two courtiers, to England. Amleth's companions were given tablets with a letter, which they were supposed to secretly deliver to the English king. In the letter, Fengon asked that Amleth be executed as soon as he landed in England. While sailing on the ship, while his companions were sleeping, Amleth found the tablets and, having read what was written there, erased his name and substituted the names of the courtiers in its place. Moreover, he added that Fengon was asking to marry the daughter of the English king to Amleth. Upon arrival in England, the courtiers were executed, and Amleth was betrothed to the daughter of the English king.
A year passed, and Amleth returned to Jutland, where he was considered dead. He ended up at a funeral feast, which was celebrated for him. Not at all embarrassed, Amleth took part in the feast and gave drink to everyone present. When they, drunk, fell to the floor and fell asleep, he covered everyone with a large carpet and nailed it to the floor so that no one could get out from under it. After that, he set fire to the palace, and Fengon and his entourage burned in the fire.
Amleth becomes king and rules together with his wife, who was a worthy and faithful wife. After her death, Amleth married the Scottish queen Germtrude, who was unfaithful to him and left her husband in trouble. When Viglet became king of Denmark after Rerik, he did not want to put up with the independent behavior of Amlet, who was his vassal, and killed him in battle.
Empty.
I saw you both fencing
Although, of course, not like you,
Laertes did not stop his studies...
But the odds are in your favor.
Something too much
Heavy... Let's try another one.
And it suits my hand. They hopefully
Same length?
Verified, my lord.
Place the wine on this table.
And if Hamlet attacks first,
Either second, or he can get even
At least after the third fight, let
They will fire a volley from all the guns of the castle -
We will drink your health, Hamlet,
And we throw a pearl into the cup,
What's more than the crown jewel
All four last kings.
Please order that the cymbals
They told the trumpets, the trumpets told the gunners,
And the guns - to the heavens, and they whispered
To the earth, they say, this is the king himself
Drink to Hamlet's health! It's time.
And justice is a matter for judges.
So shall we begin, sir?
Let's begin, my lord.
(fight)
One hit passed.
Well, never mind, let's start over.
Stop!
Bring the wine. Hamlet, for you!
The pearl is already yours.
Timpani, trumpets, cannon fire.
Have a drink!
Give the cup to the prince!
Not now.
Let's finish the fight, then we'll have a drink.
(fight)
Another blow. Isn't it true?
Yes, we touched
I admit.
King
(to the queen)
Our son will beat him.
Queen
He is sweaty and breathing very hard...
(to Hamlet)
Take a handkerchief and wipe the sweat from your forehead...
I drink to your luck, dear Hamlet!..
Thank you.
Don't touch the wine, Gertrude!
Queen
And I want, please forgive me!..
(drinks)
King
(to the side)
The same cup. Late. Too late.
No, my lady, I will refrain.
Queen
Come here, I'll wipe you off.
Laertes
(to the king)
Now the blow is mine.
I doubt.
Laertes
(to the side)
It seems that my conscience has tied my hand.
Let's continue our fight. However
I'm afraid you're fooling me
But for some reason you don’t want to fight...
Oh, that's how it is? Well, hold on!..
(fight)
The blows didn't go through.
Here, get it!
Laertes wounds Hamlet.
They exchange rapiers, tearing them out to each other with gauntlets.
Enough. Separate them.
Oh no!
(queen falls)
I'm busy, help the queen.
Hamlet wounds Laertes.
Horatio
Both are covered in blood. My lord, what's wrong with you?
Laertes falls.
Laertes, how are you?
Like a stupid woodcock in his own snare...
And bloodied by his own deceit...
What's wrong with the queen?
It's nothing, she
I lost my senses at the sight of blood...
Queen
No,
Wine... it... My Hamlet, my boy,
The wine is poisoned...
(dies)
Yes, this is treason!
Lock the doors. We'll find her.
Why look? It's in your hand.
No, you're not injured. We are both killed.
And half an hour, Hamlet, will not pass...
The blade is poisoned. I'm amazed by my own
Weapons. And in the cup there is the same poison.
Look at your mother. She is dead. And me
It's time to go out. That's all - this one...
(points to the king)
The wine is poisoned. Rapier too.
Well, work again, poison!
(hits the king's chest with a rapier)
Friends, help! I'm just wounded...
I will help you. Finish yours
Fratricide and incestuous,
Damn Denmark, damn king.
Your pearl is in my blade.
Follow my mother - and you too
You'll still catch up with her...
(stabs the king)
He received only what he himself sent.
Let us forgive each other, noble Hamlet.
Let it not fall on you from now on
My father's blood and my blood,
But let your blood not fall on me.
(dies)
Laertes, you will be spared my death.
I should follow you. I'm dying.
Forgive me, mother. Farewell to you too, Horatio,
And you who are now trembling
A silent addition to everything,
What was here? If only I had
That half hour, I would have told everything.
But this bailiff does not give a reprieve...
Takes him into custody... And without further ado...
And let him... Horatio, be your duty
Tell them what all this is about.
Horatio
And don’t ask, noble prince!
I am a Roman at heart, not a Dane.
There is more here at the bottom...
If you are -
Man, will you give me this cup...
Whomever did you say, give it back!.. Otherwise, I myself
I'll take it... Horatio, think about it,
What will happen to my name when
We will silently clean up after each other,
And only darkness will cover us?..
And if you really loved me,
Then refrain from seeking bliss
And in the disorder of the world continue
Inhale all the pain, and this story
Tell me...
(military march and shouts in the distance)
What kind of sounds are these?
Returning victoriously from Poland
Fortinbras's nephew - Fortinbras
Greets the English ambassadors.
I
Stronger than me. Receive the ambassadors yourself.
But know this - England is for Fortinbras.
I also give him my vote.
Tell him about it. And further
About what happened here before him.
There is silence in front of me...
(dies)
Horatio
It broke
Such a heart... Good night, prince.
May he rest you in peace with a sweet lullaby
Chorus of angels for your sick soul.
...What do drums have to do with it?
Enter Fortinbras, English ambassadors and retinue.
Fortinbras
Well, where is it?
The promised spectacle?
Horatio
My lord,
What do you want to see? If then
What can amaze and sadden,
Then you have already arrived.
Fortinbras
Oh my goodness!..
Such a pile of corpses says
Only about mutual self-destruction...
Proud death, what a luxurious feast
You prepared for yourself, having defeated
With one blow so many august
Special...
First Ambassador
I agree - a spectacle for the strong.
Our embassy was not at home,
And the one who longed to receive news
About the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,
It is unlikely that he will thank us.
Horatio
It is unlikely that he would thank you,
And if I could receive your embassy:
He never gave an order
About the execution of Guildenstern and Rosencrantz.
You came from England, and you
From Poland - the minute I started
Investigate what happened here.
So tell me to move it
Those killed on the platform for viewing,
And then you will hear the whole truth
About atrocities, terrible and bloody,
And about a series of accidental murders,
And about violent deaths, and others,
About terrible plans and intentions,
Destroyed even those who planned them,
Only I know about this.
Fortinbras
We will listen to you as we gather
Your dignitaries. I accept
With all the sorrow, this luck,
But there is nothing to do. I believe,
That I must show my rights,
Whom they must still remember here,
To Denmark. Let it be called
By a coincidence of happy circumstances.
Horatio
I'll tell you about this in particular
On behalf of the one whose glorious voice
Will help you attract supporters.
But you must, my prince, hurry up,
While minds are in turmoil,
So that as a result of new misconceptions
And no new conspiracies happened
And new bloody deeds.
Fortinbras
Let Hamlet have four captains
How a warrior will be placed on the platform.
Whenever he ascended his throne,
He would become a king, of which there are few.
And in commemoration of it
Deaths - I command: let them
The trumpets will pay for it.
Remove the bodies. What's good in the field
Inappropriate here. Somebody come down
And order a farewell salvo.
Everyone leaves. A cannon salvo thunders.
End of Act III and play
COMMENTS
"The Tragic History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, composed by William
Shakespeare, as it was played many times by a troupe of His Majesty's servants in
London at the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge and other places" was published in
1603. This publication received the name First Quarto due to its format.
(quarto - book page in quarter sheet), Shakespeare scholars are not without
grounds are considered pirated. It is sometimes called "bad quarto".
The following year, the Second Quarto appeared, which is usually called
"good". On the title page it was written: "The tragic story of Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark. An essay by William Shakespeare. Reprinted and enlarged
almost to the size of the original complete manuscript." This book was reprinted
three times: in 1611, 1622 (no date given) and in 1637.
It is unlikely that Shakespeare had anything to do with this publication.
It is believed that it was printed or made during production.
shorthand recording, or from a prompter's copy stolen from the theater.
After Shakespeare's death in 1616, his fellow actors John Heming and Henry
Condel collected a one-volume volume of his plays, and the so-called First Folio (edition
"in sheet"), in which "Hamlet" is placed, was published in London in 1823.
So, humanity has at its disposal three non-identical texts, among them
of which there is no one authorized.
Based on indirect evidence, Shakespeare scholars have established that Hamlet was the first
was staged at Shakespeare's famous Globe in the 1600/1601 season.
The plot revised by Shakespeare is known from the Latin History of Denmark.
12th-century Danish chronicler Saxo's Grammar, published in 1514.
The events it narrates date back to pagan times, then
there occurred before the middle of the 9th century.
The prototype of Hamlet is the Jutlandic youth Amlet, who wants to take revenge on his
Uncle Fengon, brother and co-ruler of Gorwendil, father of Amleth. Fengon killed
Gorvendil to become the sole ruler of Jutland (at the same time he married
on Geruth, daughter of King Rorik of Denmark and mother of Amleth). After the death of his father
the prince pretends to be crazy. Fengon doesn’t believe in his madness and
sends a beautiful maiden to Amlet, who, however, goes over to the side
prince. Then Fengon sends his man to Geruta's chambers to eavesdrop.
conversation between mother and son. Amlet kills the spy, and then awakens him with reproaches
mother's conscience. Fengon sends Amleth to England. A young man on a trip
accompanied by two courtiers carrying the order to kill him. Amlet steals
Fengon's message, replaces his name with the names of his companions and writes
a request to marry him to the daughter of the English king. Returning, Amleth hits
on the anniversary of his own imaginary death and deals with his uncle.
The source of Shakespeare's play was the so-called "Ur-Hamlet",
which ran in London in the late 1580s and early 1590s. Its author was
suggest Thomas Kyd (1558-1594). However, back in 1576 the French
writer François Belfort retold Saxo Grammar's chronicle of Amleth in
fifth volume of his "Tragic Stories".
Translation offered to the reader (twenty-first Russian translation
"Hamlet", counting from the one completed by A.P. Sumarokov in 1748) was made by me according to
text of the Second Quarto and First Folio. The choice of option was determined each time
logic of plot development.
This logic differs in detail from that which has traditionally been followed.
translators and Shakespeare scholars. This mainly concerns Horatio, "the best
friend" of Hamlet. Let's say, according to the First Folio, an episode is taken in which
At the service of King Horatio, they come to the Queen with a denunciation of Ophelia. Scene, in
which Horatio (and not the anonymous Courtier) warns the King about
the outbreak of Laertes' uprising (and thus gives Claudius a chance to save his life and
crown), I also took from the First Folio. With an editor like me
it seems that the gulf separating Hamlet and
his "best friend". (See the article “Hamlet.” Poetics of riddles.”)
The commentary usually contains an abbreviation in comparison with the article.
option for interpreting the text.
The remarks in our text, with the exception of two or three, go back to now
accepted in the English or Russian tradition. Exceptions - note on p. 158,
in which I tried to reconstruct an unfinished interlude, and a remark on
With. 157 "Ophelia leaves. Horatio follows her."
The first publication of Hamlet with a list of characters appeared only
in the 1709 edition (edited by Roe). This list starting with name
Claudia, today it looks quite strange, so it was compiled by me
again. The list includes thirty speaking characters (plus the rebel Danes,
who cast their votes from behind the scenes).
In Shakespeare's time it was not considered shameful to compare something living and
correct with the operation of a well-oiled machine. Contrary to popular belief
opinion about the "conventionality" of Shakespeare's theater, I dare to assure that in "Hamlet"
each line is fitted to the other, like gears in a tower clock. And, as in
In a clock mechanism, one gear turns another. The same principle
organic unity refers to the web of reminiscences and
self-reminiscences, as well as to the subtlest system of all kinds of semantic
bridges that help the reader understand what is happening on stage and
what preceded this.
Shakespeare's text is structured in such a way that one unremarkable
detail in collision with another, seemingly equally insignificant, carves
lightning of meaning, momentarily illuminating the true ones hidden from the spectator's eyes
circumstances and motivations. I don’t presume to judge how deeply I could perceive
this method of stage narration is the viewer of the Globe, but poets do not write
for the crowd, and above all for himself (if the poet is a genius, then for
eternity). This is the secret of Shakespeare's supposed "contradictions"
which both didactic Shakespeare studies and opposing
him skeptics.
x x x
Let me make a reservation once again: I am least of all interested in those interpretations and
interpretations that do not follow from the text, but are introduced in order to somehow
tie ends to ends. I proceed from the fact that in the context of the European
culture, Shakespeare's text is self-sufficient, and the researcher's job is
only to reveal this context. (With this approach, say, the myth of
painful reflection and strange indecisiveness of the Danish prince can be surrendered
to the archive of reader misconceptions.)
Shakespeare's understanding of the unity of time, place and action is different
from the later classic. Obviously, when in the last quarter of the XVII
century "Hamlet" was divided into acts, the editors of the text tried
Consistently adhere to the principle of “one act - one day”. And that's almost it for them
managed. Only in Act IV there were two days at once. (Which, however, broke
the apparent harmony of the concept.)
Proposing a new division of the play into acts (see the article "Shakespeare's Formula"),
I didn’t set out to find something that was impossible to find, I just tried
count the number of days during which the whole action takes place.
Without knowing it, I did the work that had already been done before me
three centuries ago, and only later discovered that from the instructions inside the text
a consistent and harmonious six-day system arises - that is,
biblical! - temporary unity. The system that my
predecessors and which turned out to be not understood and not in demand by them.
The instructions within the text are quite clear. Shakespeare, as if for himself
himself (or for a future researcher), takes care to indicate the time of day
(most often this concerns midnight), or when it should take place
event. For example, Hamlet tells Horatio that pirates attacked their ship
on the second day of the trip. Because from the king's words spoken before
Hamlet's expulsion, we know that the ship with the disgraced prince was supposed to
to sail until evening means that for Hamlet the voyage lasted only one night
and part of the next day. He didn't swim far. That evening the pirates
deliver a letter to the king in which Hamlet says that tomorrow he will appear
in front of the king. On the day Hamlet is not in Elsinore, a rebellion occurs
Laertes and the death of Ophelia.
All this is so obvious that it hardly makes sense to dwell on
every mention of the time of the event. If the action begins on the night of
Sunday (the first day of the week in Western European tradition; see about this
note to p. 82 on p. 222), then the overall result speaks for itself.
Sunday night
1 - esplanade in front of the castle. Francisco is on the clock, he is replaced by Horatio with
two Swiss friends; the appearance of a ghost, which Horatio orders
hit with a halberd. Description of the morning dawn.
1 day. Sunday. (Creation of light.)
2 - hall in the castle. Reception with the king, the embassy leaves for Norway,
Hamlet ironically compares the king to the sun; Horatio comes to Hamlet and
talks about the appearance of the Phantom.
3 - Polonius's room. Laertes, leaving for France, says goodbye to his sister and
father; Polonius forbids Ophelia to communicate with Hamlet.
Monday night
4 - esplanade, where Hamlet comes with Horatio and one of the guards.
Second appearance of the Phantom. The ghost beckons Hamlet to follow him inside the castle.
5 - castle courtyard. Hamlet learns the secret of his father's death from the ghost. Ghost
demands revenge. Description of the morning and the “pale fire” of the swamp firefly.
Hamlet's oath. Horatio and the guard vow to remain silent about what they saw.
Day 2. Monday. (First morning, creation of the “firmament” separating the water
heavenly /clouds/ from terrestrial water /ocean/.)
1 - Polonius's room. Polonius gives instructions to Reynaldo, Ophelia
reports Hamlet's madness.
2 - hall in the castle. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are assigned to spy on
Hamlet; the embassy returns from Norway; Polonius reads to the king and
Hamlet's letter to Ophelia to the queen, and then talks with Hamlet; Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern is trying to find out the secret of Hamlet and reports the arrival of the actors;
Hamlet talks with Polonius (words are heard about the morning, which was “precisely in
Monday") and rehearses with the First Actor, announcing that the premiere is "tomorrow".
Day 3. Tuesday. (Creation of land and plants.)
3 - hall in the castle. The king listens to the report of his spies; Polonium and
the king hides behind the carpet, “letting” Ophelia approach Hamlet; the monologue sounds "So
to be or not to be...", the meaning of which Ophelia does not understand, Hamlet breaks
relationship with Ophelia, and after his departure the king and Polonius discuss
heard.
4 - hall in the castle. Hamlet gives final instructions to the actors, suggests
Horatio watches the king's reaction during the play; Hamlet dives with
Polonius, the King and Ophelia; the actors begin to play "The Murder of Gonzago", but
the king interrupts the performance; Hamlet speaks to Horatio; Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern conveys to Hamlet the queen's demand to appear to her, about the same
Polonius also reports.
Wednesday night
5 - the king's room. The King informs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about
decision to send Hamlet to England and asks them to accompany the prince. Polonium
informs the king that Hamlet is going to his mother, and he himself wants to eavesdrop on them
conversation, hiding behind the carpet. The King prays and Hamlet puts aside his
revenge.
6 - queen's room. Hamlet kills Polonius and explains to his mother.
Third appearance of the Phantom.
Day 4 Wednesday. (Creation of the luminaries.)
7 - king's room. The queen tells the king about the murder of Polonius;
the king orders Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to bring Hamlet.
8 - Hamlet's room. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can't figure out where
Hamlet takes over the body of Polonius, and they take the prince to the king.
9 - the king's room. Hamlet's explanation with the king. The king reports
Hamlet that he is being sent to England, and after Hamlet leaves he opens
to the viewer his goal: the English king must kill Hamlet.
10 - the plain along which Fortinbras and his army pass into Poland; Hamlet
talks with the captain of the Norwegian army and once again commits himself
take revenge on the king.
Day 5 Thursday. (Creation of fish, reptiles and birds.)
1 - king's room. Horatio denounces Ophelia; Ophelia sings songs
to the king and queen, and the king asks Horatio to take care of Ophelia. Horatio
goes out after Ophelia. A popular uprising begins, about which
warned Horatio, but Horatio at the last moment manages to report
happened to the king. The Danes, led by Laertes, break down the doors, Laertes does not
lets the people into the king’s chambers, and the king speaks his teeth to the leader of the rebels;
Ophelia again sings prophetic songs and says goodbye to everyone; the king persuades
Laertes act together.
2 - Horatio's room. The pirates bring Horatio letters from Hamlet for
him, the king and queen.
Friday night
3 - king's room. The king convinces Laertes to act on his side
against Hamlet. Laertes invites the king to kill Hamlet with a poisoned blade.
The Queen reports the death of Ophelia.
Day 6 Friday. (Creation of animals and man from the dust of the earth.)
4 - cemetery. Hamlet and Horatio are listening to the gravediggers talking when
a funeral procession appears. Hamlet does not know who is in the coffin, and only from
Laertes' conversation with the priest understands that Ophelia is being buried. Laertes jumps
into Ophelia's grave and insults Hamlet; Hamlet and Laertes fight in the grave
Ophelia, but they are taken away.
5 - hall in the castle. Hamlet tells Horatio how he changed the order
the king to kill him; Osric appears, and then the Courtier, who offer
Hamlet to go out to duel with Laertes; the queen drinks during the fight
cup with poison, Laertes wounds Hamlet with a poisoned blade, and Hamlet wounds Laertes,
snatching his rapier from him; Hamlet kills the king and before dying asks
Horatio gives Fortinbras his vote to elect Fortinbras as the new king
Denmark. The queen, king, Laertes and Hamlet are dead. Horatio accepts
Fortinbras and the English ambassadors, but Fortinbras ignores his request
transfer all those killed to the platform and listen to Horatio’s story against this background. On
The four captains carry only Hamlet across the platform.
We leave the reader the opportunity to independently read the biblical
reminiscences of Hamlet. Let us only note that already in the evangelical tradition on
Friday marks two events - the crucifixion and the entombment.
Shakespeare writes his "wrong" time against the background of the time of the Bible and
Gospels.
I ACT
Scene 1. Esplanade in front of the castle
P. 13. “That’s what I said!.. Tell me the password!”
"Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself."
Bernardo woke up a drunken Francisco with his question. The guard finds out
replacement only after he utters a phrase reminiscent of a toast, and not
password: "Many years to the king!" (Long live the king!). See p. 245.
P. 15. “Horatio, are you with us?” - “Only partly.”
"Independent Psychiatric Journal". Moscow. 2003
For more than 400 years, William Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet" has not left the stage of the World Theater. The genius of the playwright created the possibility of different interpretations of the image of the Danish prince. Most often we meet two of them. One is noble, spiritual and therefore suffering from an internal conflict of necessity and the possible illegality of fulfilling a difficult duty - revenge for his father. The other is an exposer of deceit and immorality, rebelling against the fact that his country and “the whole world is a prison” (Vysotsky). However, the play also talks about a certain mental disorder that Hamlet allegedly suffers from. Is this really true? What role did this play in the fate of Hamlet himself and the fate of everyone around him, and perhaps in the fate of the state to whose ruling elite he belonged? What if we take the liberty of giving Hamlet an absentee psychological and psychiatric examination. This requires not only an assessment of the prince’s personality, but also a professional interpretation of his statements and actions in specific circumstances. We will take material for our discussions only from the information contained in the play (translated by M.L. Lozinsky. - William Shakespeare. Selected Works. - Leningrad, 1939).
We know that Hamlet is 30 years old, i.e. He is far from a youth, but a mature husband. According to modern gerontologists, in Shakespeare's time a 40-year-old man was already an old man. The action of the play, apparently, takes place even earlier - in the 12th and 13th centuries. Outwardly, as his mother said, he is “fat and short of breath,” but very dexterous, capable of fighting on equal terms with one of the best swordsmen, Laertes. The prince is well educated and studies at the famous German University of Wittenberg. He is smart, impressionable, loves and knows the theater, and is popular with the common people (“... a violent crowd is partial to him...”). Hamlet lives little directly in his homeland and, despite his age, does not take part in governing the country.
What throne is the prince heir to? According to the play, Denmark (most likely from the 12th century) is a powerful and warlike state, even England pays tribute to it.
Hamlet's father, the late King Hamlet Sr., was a tough ruler, warrior, and conqueror. According to the customs of that time, in a fair fight with the King of Norway, Fortinbras, he took away part of his lands. Now that he is dead, the son of the Norwegian king, Fortinbras the Younger, is going to win them back.
Hamlet's uncle, the current king Claudius, is allegedly his brother's murderer - a power-hungry courtier and a smart politician. It is believed that he took the throne from Hamlet. However, by analogy with the transfer of the throne of Norway to the brother of the deceased king, it can be assumed that the same law existed in Denmark. Claudius's diplomatic abilities were manifested in the fact that he managed to quickly pacify the Norwegian enemy, and subsequently easily calm down Laertes, who had come to avenge his murdered father, Polonius. His character is apparently contradictory: lust for power and deceit are combined in him with torments of conscience, which he speaks about in Act III and during the prayer of repentance.
Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude, “heiress of a warlike country,” is by no means young, she is about 50 years old, she has been on the throne for more than 30 years, i.e. She is well acquainted with all the intricacies of governing the country. Her character appears to be firm and decisive. During a short riot by Laertes’ supporters calling for the overthrow of Claudius, the queen was not afraid, but threateningly ordered: “Get back, you vile Danish dogs!” Apparently, her relationship with her late husband, contrary to Hamlet’s opinion, had lost its former tenderness: she took her husband’s death painfully coldly, not emotionally, but rationally reassuring her son: “That is the fate of everyone: everything that lives will die and pass through nature into eternity.” Sudden the death of the king dealt a strong blow to the throne, the Norwegian neighbor decided that “the kingdom had fallen into decay,” revenge was possible. The new king had not yet established himself, he needed support within the country. It can be assumed that Gertrude, without knowing anything, how , and everything about the details of her husband’s death (officially he died from a snake bite), she made an important political move: sacrificing her reputation, she married the new king just a month after the funeral, perfectly understanding the haste of the marriage, which she then tells Claudius By this same act, she strengthens the position of her beloved son as the heir to the throne: after all, if Gertrude had stepped down from power, then Claudius could have his own heirs. By the way, Claudius also admits that he married her, “relying on the wisdom" of his courtiers. It is possible that Gertrude, given the prince’s aloofness from the court, his impressionability, and adoration of his father, did not initiate Hamlet into the true motives of her marriage. It is important to note that there is not a single line in the play in which the queen talks about her feelings for Claudius. It is no coincidence that in plays and films, where the image of Gertrude is depicted in a cliche way, her love relationship with the king is demonstrated through mise-en-scène, only through play without words.
And what about Hamlet? He, of course, did not understand anything, took everything literally, only sensually, because he was not a politician, never participated in governing the state, and was not responsible for its fate. The death of his father, the protector, the hero, plunges the emotionally unstable Hamlet into reactive depression, which was aggravated by the immoral, from his point of view, act of his mother. He is gloomy, emaciated, has shortness of breath, and regrets that religion prohibits suicide. With his appearance, Hamlet evokes pity and sympathy among those around him. They are trying to help him, cheer him up, console him. The king and mother ask him to stay and not go to Wittenberg. At this moment, the ghost of the late king informs Hamlet about the circumstances of his father’s death, about his uncle’s treachery, and calls on him to take revenge. The shock, layered with depression, caused him psychogenic stress, an acute emotional reaction, possibly with a partially altered consciousness. Ophelia saw Hamlet in soiled clothes, a “pale shirt”, with “knocking knees”, “and with a look so deplorable, as if he had been released from hell to speak about horrors...”. At first everyone decided that Hamlet had gone crazy with love for Ophelia. This emphasizes that his loved ones treated him not as a mature man, but as a young man, an infant.
From that moment on, Hamlet changed dramatically: instead of depression, total suspicion and wariness appeared. With the rare exception of all the courtiers, he included enemies in the camp, suspecting them of treachery and betrayal. As often happens in psychopathology, mental trauma contributed to the development of a monoidea that completely captivates a person and is practically impossible to dissuade or correct. Without a moment’s doubt, at the order of the ghost, Hamlet “...on wings as swift as thoughts, as passionate dreams, rushed to revenge.” Often, in overly emotional and mentally infantile individuals, some kind of injustice suddenly “opens their eyes” to many relationships. At the same time, assessments of all people and events lose their undertones, everything becomes extremely clear and contrasting, not requiring any logical explanation or proof. In his suspicions, Hamlet does not even think about the fact that only Claudius knows about the murder of his father, and that everyone else, including the queen and the courtiers, consider the cause of the death of the former king to be a snake bite. Hamlet is sure that they are pretending that everyone is mired in deceit and vice. It is very characteristic that the desire to take revenge on Claudius spread to the closest, and therefore defenseless, people - his mother and Ophelia. Hamlet tortures them, humiliates them, taking advantage, in particular, of his position as a prince. He is very categorical. Having not yet become king and believing that all women are dissolute, Hamlet declares that “... we will have no more marriages; those who are already married, all but one will live; the rest will remain as they are.”
Hamlet's personality changes. He develops new traits: suspicion, cruelty and deceit. He cold-bloodedly, as if in passing, kills Polonius, a wise and kind man, the father of his beloved and her brother Laertes, with whom he was friends. He kills by accident, by mistake, but he committed a deliberate murder, aiming at the king, thereby fulfilling his main plan. This is quite contrary to Hamlet's notorious indecisiveness. Having committed murder, Hamlet does not regret it at all, speaks of Polonius as “a talkative rogue,” mocks his body, calling him “offal,” and interferes with his burial. Choosing an opportune moment to kill Claudius, Hamlet enjoys revenge; he even savors the upcoming murder. Having an easy opportunity to kill the king during prayer, the prince postpones the execution so that the murdered man does not go to heaven. He plans to kill him while Claudius is sinning so that he will go straight to hell without repentance. Captivated by his paranoid idea of revenge, Hamlet, a member of the royal family, does not even think about what will happen to the country after the murder of Claudius, because... “The death of the sovereign is not alone, but carries everything nearby into the abyss...” To hide his main goal, Hamlet puts on, as it were, the guise of a jester. This allows him to make jokes, humiliate his “enemies,” and make accusatory speeches. However, he is considered a dangerous madman not so much for this, but for his suspicion, aggressiveness, and unpredictability of actions. Since “The madness of the strong requires supervision,” he is placed under surveillance, which he really does not like. After all, like most paranoids, Hamlet does not consider himself sick.
Time contributes to the paranoid development of Hamlet's personality: the action of the play actually takes a long time to unfold. Ophelia, during the actors’ performance, tells Hamlet that 4 months have passed since the king’s death: “That’s already twice two months, my prince.” That is, given that the ghost informed the prince about his murder 2 months later (this follows from Hamlet’s conversation with Horatio), Hamlet’s ideas of retribution and delusional behavior long before many events, before traveling to England and returning home, have been going on for 2 months and may well acquire a persistent character.
As often happens with paranoia, Hamlet turns into the so-called haunted pursuer. He became cunning. Being completely delusional and completely confident that his school friends are conspiring against him, the prince prepares reprisals against them in advance. We understand from the text of the play that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do not know the contents of the king's accompanying letter, which they are taking to England simply as obedient courtiers. However, Hamlet does not even try to find out. It is already clear to him that they know and has no doubt that they are preparing a trap for him. Therefore, he is happy to answer them in kind. Even before sailing to England, the prince informs his mother that he will deal with his former friends. “That’s the fun of blowing up a digger with his own mine; it will be bad if I don’t dig deeper than them with a yard to let them go to the moon. There is a beauty in when two cunning things collide.” Therefore, it can be assumed that Hamlet armed himself with a duplicate of the royal seal in advance and thought about how he would replace the cover letter. In a forged letter, he could simply cancel Claudius's order to the English king to deal with him. However, Hamlet, on behalf of the king, sends his former friends to a cruel death, “without even allowing them to pray.” One can again assume that later, when telling Horatio about this episode, Hamlet deceives him, saying that he stole and opened the royal message on the ship because of a bad feeling.
Hamlet's mental disorder is often referred to as his visions and communication with a ghost. This is wrong. When the ghost first appears, it is seen not only by Hamlet, but also by others, which rules out hallucinations. Therefore, the ghost here is simply a stage image as a ghost, etc. In the third act, the ghost corresponds to visual and auditory hallucinations, since only Hamlet sees and talks to him, and Gertrude does not see or hear him. However, we cannot include these hallucinations in the structure of Hamlet’s general mental disorder, because such hallucinations would have to be combined with other mental disorders, which he does not have.
What result did Hamlet’s paranoid idea of vengeance lead to? The main thing is that the prince’s activities destroyed the state power and power of the kingdom. The entire ruling elite of the country died, and the king of Denmark, on a very strange recommendation from Hamlet, will apparently become the revanchist Fortinbras, the son of the Norwegian king defeated by Hamlet’s father.
If you imagine a different ending. Hamlet achieves his main goal: he kills King Claudius and remains alive. He is the only heir to the throne and therefore becomes king. What kind of ruler would this be? Initially emotionally unstable, prone to depression, lacking management skills, and later becoming suspicious, peremptory, cruel and treacherous, having learned the impunity of murder, the prince would most likely turn into a tyrant.
I wonder why Shakespeare created such an image of Hamlet, which, according to modern psychiatric diagnostics, can be classified as “Paranoid disorder in an emotionally unstable person”? Indeed, even in the times of the playwright, Hamlet’s inappropriate behavior most likely raised doubts. He could also make the actions of Hamlet and the queen more understandable. For example, if the prince's age were reduced to 18 - 19 years old, then his mother, Gertrude, would be about 40. His excessive emotionality and her romantic relationship with Claudius would be more explainable. The play could have 2-3 lines about their mutual feelings. It would be possible to smooth out Hamlet’s cruel, treacherous behavior towards Polonius and his former friends, and not force the prince to transfer his kingdom to his worst enemy. However, one gets the impression that Shakespeare does all this on purpose, that he does not like Hamlet, that he allows us to see aspects of the prince’s personality that do not agree with our usual ideas about him. What idea did Shakespeare want to express with this? For example, that one crime in the leadership of a country can lead to its complete destruction? Or about the danger of having such a person as Hamlet in the ruling elite of the state? Or maybe it’s simpler - the heroes themselves, not listening to the author, took him away with them?
*Pathography- description of the personality of famous people based on psychological and psychiatric assessments
