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SUMMARY OF ACT I.
This much of Hamlet we have now learned: he is a thoughtful man, a
genuine student, little acquainted with the world save through books,
and a lover of his kind. His university life at Wittenberg is suddenly
interrupted by a call to the funeral of his father, whom he dearly loves
and honours. Ere he reaches Denmark, his uncle Claudius has contrived,
in an election (202, 250, 272) probably hastened and secretly
influenced, to gain the voice of the representatives at least of the
people, and ascend the throne. Hence his position must have been an
irksome one from the first; but, within a month of his father's death,
his mother's marriage with his uncle--a relation universally regarded as
incestuous--plunges him in the deepest misery. The play introduces him
at the first court held after the wedding. He is attired in the mourning
of his father's funeral, which he had not laid aside for the wedding.
His aspect is of absolute dejection, and he appears in a company for
which he is so unfit only for the sake of desiring permission to leave
the court, and go back to his studies at Wittenberg.[A] Left to himself,
he breaks out in agonized and indignant lamentation over his mother's
conduct, dwelling mainly on her disregard of his father's memory. Her
conduct and his partial discovery of her character, is the sole cause of
his misery. In such his mood, Horatio, a fellow-student, brings him word
that his father's spirit walks at night. He watches for the Ghost, and
receives from him a frightful report of his present condition, into
which, he tells him, he was cast by the murderous hand of his brother,
with whom his wife had been guilty of adultery. He enjoins him to put a
stop to the crime in which they are now living, by taking vengeance on
his uncle. Uncertain at the moment how to act, and dreading the
consequences of rousing suspicion by the perturbation which he could not
but betray, he grasps at the sudden idea of affecting madness. We have
learned also Hamlet's relation to Ophelia, the daughter of the selfish,
prating, busy Polonius, who, with his son Laertes, is destined to work
out the earthly fate of Hamlet. Of Laertes, as yet, we only know that he
prates like his father, is self-confident, and was educated at Paris,
whither he has returned. Of Ophelia we know nothing but that she is
gentle, and that she is fond of Hamlet, whose attentions she has
encouraged, but with whom, upon her father's severe remonstrance, she is
ready, outwardly at least, to break.
[Footnote A: Roger Ascham, in his Scholemaster, if I mistake not, sets
the age, up to which a man should be under tutors, at twenty-nine.]
[Footnote 1: 'Sweare' not in Quarto.]
[Footnote 2: They do not this time shift their ground, but swear--in
dumb show.]
[Footnote 3: --for now they had obeyed his command and sworn secrecy.]
[Footnote 4: 'cursed spight'--not merely that he had been born to do
hangman's work, but that he should have been born at all--of a mother
whose crime against his father had brought upon him the wretched
necessity which must proclaim her ignominy. Let the student do his best
to realize the condition of Hamlet's heart and mind in relation to his
mother.]
[Footnote: 5 This first act occupies part of a night, a day, and part of
the next night.]
[Page 64]
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