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Thoth Tarot (Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris):
The Prince of Wands
(image used by permission of the Ordo Templis Orientis, Secretary General/ International Headquarters,
Berlin, Germany)

Hamlet – The Prince – Edward Norton

[NOTE: If you haven't already read the disclaimer on this section's introductory page with regard to any and all actor names mentioned in this section of the website, please do so before proceeding here.]

Ah yes.

("Finally," I hear a number of people grumble with more than just a whiff of exasperation.)

Hamlet. The most complex character ever created in literary history, subject to fervent debate practically from the moment he stepped out of Shakespeare's brain onto the Globe Theatre stage and finally onto thousands of other stages all around the world.

So who is he then, this Hamlet, Prince of Denmark; this man trapped between heaven and earth, between life and death, between loyalty and indecision; torn up by inner conflicts, burdened with the charge to avenge his father's murder and to set right a world (or more precisely, a time) profoundly "out of joint:" Reluctant avenger? Reluctant suicide? Madman? Brother-in-spirit to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Werther, that epitome of classicism's romantic hero and natural philosopher? Renaissance man? A man who can't make up his mind? Wrecked by Freudian guilt? Christ-like figure and saviour? All of the above? Or someone else entirely?

Conventional wisdom has it that in order to understand the hero of any of Shakespeare's tragdies, you ought to picture a perfect marble statue, imagine it being affected by a tiny little fissure to its otherwise still perfect surface – and then watch that tiny crack widen, grow and spread throughout the entire statue, until that statue finally crumbles down and falls to pieces. In the same way, we are told, the stamp of one defect eventually so taints the character of each one of Shakespeare's tragic heroes that it cannot fail but bring about their utter ruin and perdition. And there's certainly something to be said for that theory if you think, for example, of the likes of Macbeth and his Lady (ambition), Othello (jealousy), King Lear (blind folly), Coriolanus (pride), or Titus Andronicus and his nemesis Tamora (vengefulness).

But Hamlet?

Oh, absolutely, I suppose Sir Laurence Olivier would respond to me now; and he certainly made his case for the one defect identified by him in the Prince's character – Freudian guilt – in a most compelling fashion (more on that below). But for all my respect for Sir Laurence and his splendid rendition of the Prince, I'm not so sure I agree with him here; or rather, I'm actually pretty sure that I don't agree. Now, it's of course entirely possible that being a woman, I simply don't "get" Hamlet, however much I may be struggling to understand him. Or maybe, looking at my rather lengthy ramblings here and on most other pages of this website, I simply fail to see the wood for all the trees. But I just can't help it: I think there's more to Hamlet than merely the stamp of one [single] defect. So who do I think he is, then?

Let me preface my reading of the Prince's character by saying that after four hundred years of intense literary debate and Thespian interpretations ranging from downright sedate and dejected to very mad indeed, I'd find it preposterous for anyone to claim (let alone actually believe) that they have found the one definitive understanding of Hamlet's character, and the answers to all related questions. So, far be it from me to make any such claim – all I can do is give it my best shot, without any guarantee, assurance or assertion of correctness whatsoever. Far be it from me, also, to try and reinvent the wheel. I'll gladly leave that to those with greater experience in these matters than my own.

I think one of the reasons why interpretations of Hamlet's character vary so widely is that Shakespeare, the ultimate actor's playwright, gives very few express stage directions – which is why I also think those directions that he does give should be taken all the more seriously – and although he certainly does wrap (even detailed) suggestions for the approach to a given scene or a given line in pieces of dialogue here and there, overall the paucity of explicit writerly guidance is particularly stunning in the Prince's case. Thus, it probably behoves us to start with the few things we know for certain about him and work our way forward from there. Of course this is only going to get us part of the way, and at some point we'll reach a level of abstraction where a strictly literal reading would fall decidedly too short. But let's take things step by step, shall we?

So what do we know about Hamlet?

Well, to begin with, we know that he is a Prince.

Did somebody just make "duh"? "Sure he's a prince; that's not his problem, his father's murder at the hand of his uncle is?"

Careful, folks. Pause right there. I promise we'll get to the heavy stuff; but first, let's consider Hamlet's premise – let's look at "where he comes from."

Why do I think his royal status is worthy of such special note? Well, first of all, it's one of the few things we know with absolute certainty. Secondly, Shakespeare himself obviously accorded the fact some importance, because although we usually tend to refer to this particular play simply as "Hamlet," its complete name is actually "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" – and the Bard isn't exactly known to ever have used words wantonly; including in the titles of his plays. Thirdly, I think Hamlet's royal birth explains at least part of his choices and his interactions with the play's other characters (and it also makes his friendship with the modestly-born Horatio even more remarkable).

Well then, my lord Hamlet. What does it mean that you weren't just born one of the guys, a guy next door? Obviously, on the one hand, it means a life of privilege; including the privilege to abuse others, and to abuse the fact that they are in absolutely no position to respond in kind. And we see Hamlet do precisely this often enough: An obviously highly intelligent, (rightly) self-confessed young man of extreme pride – even arrogance –, he has little patience for flattery, stupidity, and falsehood; and anyone whom he suspects of either of these is mercilessly exposed to the razorsharp blades of his tongue's "daggers;" be they that supposedly "tedious old fool" Polonius, "the fair Ophelia" after she has rejected his attentions, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who were "sent for" and, at Claudius's and Gertrude's behest, try to "sound [him] from [his] lowest note to the top of [his] compass," or the "waterfly" Osric, who is in a habit of lavishly spending "golden words," without, however, understanding the meaning of even half of them.

Yet, despite his high birth and capacity for near-unchecked pride, Hamlet not only values modesty (as long as it is true modesty), as we know from his praise of Horatio (more on that elsewhere); he is also perfectly willing to disregard social status vis-à-vis those who have found his approval. This is true not only with regard to Horatio but also the Players – especially the First Player or Player King – whom he holds in extremely high regard; even the First Clown/Gravedigger, whom he encounters upon returning from his aborted journey to England and whose social station couldn't possibly be any further from Hamlet's own, quickly wins his appreciation by virtue of his witty quips and retorts alone. Indeed, most of those for whom Hamlet does show unmitigated approval are not of noble birth, whereas the severely-abused Polonius, Ophelia and Osric are; albeit not of direct royal lineage (even if, as outlined in the context of Polonius's character, I do think it's likely that the Cousellor's family is particularly close to the throne). Only Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are (probably) commoners.

On the other hand, Hamlet is also a darned lonely guy, and he has been lonely for most his life. He's an only child, and while he has certainly seen plenty of flattery and insincerity while growing up (which, I think it's safe to assume, is the very reason why he so despises that kind of behaviour), it doesn't exactly appear that he has had many friends of comparable station. Given the rather bawdy greeting that he extends to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and considering that Claudius, too, in welcoming them to Elsinore, mentions that they have been "of so young days brought up" with the Prince, one may fairly assume that, for a time, these two fulfilled a similar role in Hamlet's life to the one that Sir John Falstaff played during the "wilder days" of King Henry V; but just as the erstwhile Prince Hal banishes Falstaff from his presence as soon as he has ascended the throne of England, so, too, Hamlet realises mere minutes after his schoolfellows' arrival that they cannot be trusted, and effectively dismisses them as companions. Thus, though he never gets to assume the royal honours and "ceremony" that Claudius has deprived him of, I think even without this particular experience – and for all his Princely arrogance (which is at heart nothing but his response to the surroundings in which he is forced to move) – he might well have agreed with the even younger English King Harry's musings during the night before the Battle at Agincourt:

The only person I can really think of as a "suitable" companion of Hamlet's youth is Laertes, who seems to be approximately of the same age (although we're not told so for certain); and therefore, it is no wonder that although Hamlet and Laertes are tragically opposed in the end due to Claudius's machinations, the Prince never loses his respect for Ophelia's brother; indeed, he confesses to Horatio that he is sorry that he "forgot [himself]" to Laertes over Ophelia's grave and not only vows to "court his favours" but also feels the need to justify himself for his outburst, pointing out that "the bravery of [Laertes's] grief [over Ophelia's death] did put [him] into a tow'ring passion." And when (seemingly) given the opportunity to apologise to Laertes before their duel, he goes to great lengths to do just that and to indeed "court his favours."

"The fair Ophelia" on the other hand, is – I suspect – a good bit younger than both Hamlet and Laertes and thus, probably only blossomed into a potential companion and indeed, the focal point of his romantic attachment very recently. (Yes, yes, I know. Sir Kenneth Branagh seems to see that differently. But remember that my version, unlike his, is set in the late Middle Ages or early Renaissance.) We are talking about a time when women, and those of noble blood especially, were routinely married off at an extremely young age (often as teenagers or even prepubescent girls), and since Ophelia is neither married nor seems to have attracted any other suitors yet (although it would of course be possible that those had ceded their place to the Prince, but we're not given any indication that that might have been the case), I think it is fair to assume that whatever brotherly or friendly affections Hamlet felt for her while growing up, those feelings have grown into something more – or different – only fairly recently. Indeed, we can assume as much from her initial exchange with Polonius, who chides her for having [only] "of late" permitted Hamlet to give "private time" to her.

Now, being alone as he already is anyway, imagine what the dreadful news about his father's murder (at the hand of his own uncle, his father's brother, no less) and his father's express charge of revenge must mean to Hamlet. We never learn whether at this point he is still close enough to Laertes to ever have contemplated taking him into his confidence; but ultimately that's immaterial because Laertes has just left for France. Ophelia falls from Hamlet's grace the moment that, following her father's orders, she begins to reject his attentions. Gertrude, his own mother, has made common cause with the murderer and has helped him to the throne by marrying him "a little month" after his deed: she may not positively have know whom exactly she has wedded so quickly after her first husband's death, but her very frailty – her apparently so dubious morals – as well as the fact that Claudius has managed to poison her brain and pull her to his side so quickly and efficiently, in Hamlet's World and in his mind certainly doesn't bode much good. Polonius, Hamlet takes for a "foolish prating knave" and "tedious old fool;" and in any event, he concludes that the old Counsellor is another prime target for Claudius's poisoned honey tongue and thus can't be relied on under any circumstances, either. Thus, the only person he can trust – and even of that, he is not entirely sure initially – is Horatio, who, however, can only listen but is in no real position to help him; a position of power. (Indeed, given Horatio's fierce loyalty to Hamlet, this is the greatest tragedy in his own role I think.)

And bearing all that in mind, now let's look at what Claudius has actually done – not only to his own brother but also to Hamlet, to Gertrude, and to Denmark; what Hamlet is thus charged to avenge or "set right." Hamlet himself lays it out for us in one of his last dialogues with Horatio: Claudius has "kill'd [his] King, and whor'd [his] mother; popp'd in between th' election and [his] hopes; thrown out his angle for [Hamlet's] proper life." He has, in other words, committed both regicide and fratricide, which in their world is the very act that has put the time so much "out of joint" and turned Denmark into a kingdom of darkness. And if that alone weren't enough already, he has soiled Hamlet's mother, the Queen, by dragging her into an adulterous marriage; he has overridden Hamlet's own succession rights – a grievous thing to do in any event, but certainly not something a cocky kid like this particular Prince would take lightly – and at last, he has also gone and conspired (repeatedly, although alas, Hamlet only caught wind of the first plot) against Hamlet's own life. "And with such coz'nage – is't not perfect conscience to quit him with this arm? And is't not to be damn'd to let this canker of our nature come in further evil?" Hamlet inquires of Horatio, who (undoubtedly to his disappointment), instead of responding with a straight "yes," merely warns the Prince that Claudius is due to soon learn how precisely Hamlet managed to avert his (first) attempt on his life, and will thus be put on his guard.

Then why doesn't Hamlet do as he has been commanded by his father, and as he so valiantly resolves again and again throughout the play? Is he not, after all, simply "a man who cannot make up his mind," as the prologue of Sir Laurence Olivier's Oscar-winning, landmark 1948 interpretation expressly states, drawing on the "So oft it chances in particular men" soliloquy preceding Hamlet's encounter with his father's Ghost, and laying the blame for Hamlet's reluctance on his Freudian relationship with his own mother?

Again: great as my respect for Sir Laurence is, and fully acknowledging that for much of the early and mid-20th century, nobody (rightfully) owned the role more than he and Sir John Gielgud did, there I do disagree; and despite the beginning of Hamlet's first major monologue in the second scene of the first act ("O that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd his canon 'gainst self-slaughter!") and all that talk about making your "quietus ... with a bare bodkin" in "To be, or not to be," I also don't see him quite as close to suicide as Sir Laurence's famous performance implies. – To be certain, Hamlet epitomises a man torn apart by his own emotions as well as by profound intellectual doubts going hand in hand with his emotional roller coaster ride. But is this really a wonder – do we really have to take recourse to psychological theories developed a few hundred years after the play was written in order to explain what's going on in Hamlet's mind (even if I wouldn't put it past Shakespeare's exceptional insight into human nature that he had at least an inkling of the things that would come to comprise the essence of Master Freud's psychoanalytical theories)? Methinks not so.

First of all, ask yourselves whether you, if put in the Prince's place, would simply have proceeded to an act of killing, even if it were to rid yourselves (and the world) of a despot and murderer. Leaving aside that, on the one hand, I think this is hardly the response that would be given by any person who has grown up in a civilised society (whether our own or Shakespeare's), and also leaving aside that, on the other hand, people in the theatre sometimes do precisely what we wouldn't do in real life, one of the many timeless attractions of Shakespeare's plays was his ability to create characters who feel entirely "real" and believable: thus, what makes Hamlet such a credible character is precisely the fact that despite his obvious horror at his uncle's deeds, he doesn't just go and mete out capital punishment on Claudius after having heard his father's story. This Prince not only "feels" real because he has plenty of other flaws, such as his already-mentioned arrogance, his over-abundance of emotions (more on those below) and his tendency towards absolutely disastrous actions if he acts decisively at all, but also because he isn't Superman – he has no superior knowledge, nor does he, notwithstanding his outburst upon first hearing the Ghost's dreadful revelations, take it for granted that what his father bids him do really is the right response. And there are dreadful consequences indeed in store for Hamlet, should his father's command not be the right way to go (and maybe even then): nothing short of his own salvation is at stake, for he will not only kill a man (which in itself is an unredeemable sin already); moreover, like his uncle, he will compound that act by killing a King, and be that King ten times a murderer and usurper of his throne himself.

More fundamentally speaking, however, Hamlet first and foremost remains, and in fact, prides himself on being an intellectual: He despises and mocks the airy-fairy pseudo-intellectualism of his "schoolfellows" Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; and although not a scholar in the stricter sense like his friend Horatio, nor a cool, rational man by any account (which lacking coolness and detachment is, after all one of the reasons why he so values the friendship of a man who possesses both qualities in abundance), Hamlet is undoubtedly highly intelligent and capable of great philosophical insight. Thus, as we have come to understand long before we even get to "To be, or not to be" – and as even a person's very first exposure to the play's most famous soliloquy must make abundantly clear – the Ghost's charge poses problems far exceeding matters of mere practicality for our Prince. This is all the more true since he has also grown to manhood looking up to the example of a father whom we hear described as "valiant" by none other than our trusted Horatio from the very beginning, and whom the Prince himself, whenever he speaks of the man his father used to be when he was still alive, describes only in the most glowing terms. And even foregoing the hyperbole in Hamlet's own words, Horatio, too, goes on to tell us that it is not merely he alone who describes the dead King as "valiant" but that, indeed, "so this [whole] side of our known world esteem'd him." We can thus certainly assume that this was a King who reigned fairly, evenly, and with a great deal of foresight; while not in the way of a modern-day democratic ruler (that simply wasn't an issue in Shakespeare's time; not to mention that democracy and monarchy, at least absolute monarchy, are anathema anyway), but in any event, as a wise sovereign who promoted justice and prosperity, not terror, suppression and moral decay. If that, however, was the role model our Prince grew up with, this must certainly also have been the kind of government to which he himself would have aspired had he ever been given the opportunity to rule.

Now, one of the truisms that every writing teacher under the sun will probably dump on their students sooner or later, and of which Shakespeare undoubtedly was also very much aware, is that the stronger any given outwad trigger, the stronger must also be a character's inner response – and, of course, vice versa. But in light of the above considerations, can there possibly be a stronger external trigger than returning to the home and the world you have known and finding your whole universe, and your entire belief system, completely out of joint and turned on its head? And can there possibly a more profoundly tortured reaction to such a discovery than Hamlet's musings in To be, or not to be?

Imagine how our Prince must have felt upon his return to Elsinore, the home from which he had parted some time earlier for his studies in Wittenberg, expecting it to still be as blessed by his father's reign as it had been upon his leave-taking: imagine his complete and utter shock at not only finding his father dead before his time, and at finding out (from his father's own Ghost, no less) that he was murdered by his own brother, but also at seeing every value he had been taught to hold high turned into its very opposite; at coming into a world, indeed, profoundly out of joint in each and every single respect. For all his emotionality and pride, would a man like our Prince – an intellectual at heart – really rush to action and heedlessly turn against the perceived perpetrator of all that evil without thinking twice? Or would he not rather be paralysed, and try (in vain) to come to grips with the situation, to understand it in order to really know how to respond, if any response is possible at all? As explained in the context of the soliloquy in question, I believe that to Hamlet his father's charge really is, as that soliloquy's famous opening line so succinctly summarises (and as is then instantly driven home yet again by the remaining lines of the first quatrain) a matter of life, death, and everything in between: not merely justice and vengeance, terror and happiness, war and peace, fate and self-determination, but the Meaning of Life itself; the question why we are sent into this world in the first place, where we are going afterwords, and whether, in the face of evil such as that committed by Claudius, there is any point in action at all; uprooting the philosophical foundations of Hamlet's very existence, turning him inside out and, just because his personal moral and philosophical creed has, so far, been built upon civilised tenets of the highest order, leaving him (for way too long) at an absolute loss how to respond.

But does the fact that the current of Hamlet's enterprise of great pith and moment, for the better part of the play, seem to turn awry and lose the name of action mean that for all his philosophising, and despite all the "daggers" of his tongue and his emotionality, he is that which he most fears to be: Is he a coward – a man of big words but of no action?

No again. Much as we all, I am sure, would like to prod him to action at some point or other, before giving in to that inclination, let's take an even closer look at the nature of the charge that Hamlet's father lays on his son. Because he doesn't just tell the Prince (in so many words) to kill his own uncle, and thus, to likewise take another human being's, nay, a King's (albeit an unlawful one's) life in revenge of his own; and he not only then warns the Prince not to "let ... the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damned incest." By charging him thus (and by thus also squarely laying the burden upon him that for his act of vengeance, however justified it may be by earthly standards, Hamlet may be putting his own soul into peril), the dead King is sending his son into battle against an overwhelming enemy, against the very person who has so thoroughly corrupted the country and is now pulling all of its strings: and remember that he is also sending him there alone, without the slightest support system, without any associate or anybody's assistance, because nobody but him can be trusted with this mission (and that the Ghost, too, of course very much realises all this is patently clear from the very fact that he even takes the Prince to the most remote parapet of Elsinore's battlements in order to make sure that their exchange is not overheard). Not merely figuratively speaking, the dead King is charging Hamlet to go against Evil Power personified – but with his, the Prince's own salvation at the gravest, most immediate peril; for even in the face of the greatest and most profoundest evil, "Justice is mine, says the Lord" (Romans, 12:19). Now, even if Hamlet were a modern superhero (and he most certainly is not), these would be darn near-impossible odds indeed. How much more impossible they must be to a, for all his intelligence, profoundly flawed human being like our Prince, nobody but him can know for sure; although we can all venture a guess. And it isn't as if Hamlet didn't perfectly understand the full import of his father's charge: even his first response, once the Ghost has vanished, is "O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? And shall I couple hell?" – and towards the end of this very same scene, the last one of the first act, he then expressly deplores the "cursed spite that ever [he] was born to set it right" ("it" being the already repeatedly mentioned time that's "out of joint"). And while he does not go so far as to expressly equate Claudius with the Devil, he certainly (on several occasions) indicates that he sees him as an instrument of darkness, most poignantly so after Polonius's death, where, following a rather macabre lecture on worms and earthly decay, he finally responds to Claudius's repeated question "Where is Polonius?" with the words, "In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i' th' other place yourself" – which last comment, I think, we must imagine him spitting right into Claudius's face.

So how does Hamlet's reluctance and, in fact, utter despair at the task set to him by his own father's Ghost square with the Prince's emotionality then? Can we (and Shakespeare) really have it both ways, can we have a paragon of intelligence and philosophical doubt on the one hand; a man stifled by the enormity of his charge and of the issues involved, and a man driven by blind emotion on the other hand? Because there can be no doubt that Hamlet is also extremely passionate; during much of the play – until his departure for England – his emotions often even go from one extreme to another in a matter of seconds, from near-Orestian madness (more on that particular state of mind, and on the Greek mythological sources of the Prince's character anon as well) to utter dejection and vice versa, from gloom to euphoria, and from despair to fierce resolve. For example, when in the first act's second scene, mere instants after his abject lamentations over his mother's unholy marriage to his uncle and over the futility of life in general, Horatio and the Sentinels bring him the news of the apparition of his father's Ghost, he responds highly euphorically; ultimately resolving with a grim glee, "I will watch to-night. Perchance 'twill walk again. ... If it assume my noble father's person, I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape and bid me hold my peace." When he then concludes only moments later, "I doubt some foul play ... Foul deeds will rise, though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes," any even remote hint of suicide has thoroughly vanished from his demeanor. And we see him go through similar patterns several more times, with a particularly violent outburst of self-loathing in "rogue and peasant slave" speech at the end of Act 2, Scene 2, brought on by the Player King's passionate rendition of "Pyrrhus and Hecuba."

Thus, yes, emotionally unbalanced our Prince certainly is, even to the point that, when he does let his emotions get the better of him and (re)act without really thinking at all (such as when he mistakenly kills Polonius), the results are invariably disastrous. But for the better part of the play, it seems to me that it is precisely the fact that his philosophical belief system is thrown into such utter turmoil which makes his emotions go overboard as well; and it should also be noted that virtually all of these scenes take place during the tragedy's first two thirds, before his (almost-)encounter with Fortinbras, while he is on his way to England. The only time we see him display (and act upon) emotion spontaneously in the last part of the play, after his return to Denmark, is in his quarrel with Laertes over Ophelia's grave, and I see two significant distinctions in that scene vis-à-vis the Prince's prior outbursts: First of all, there is a completely unexpected, sharply acute trigger (the sudden shock of the fair maid's death), whereas before, though not exactly unprovoked, his fits were either expressions of emotions long built up and simply no longer containable (as in his treatment of Ophelia, and also in "rogue and peasant slave"), or albeit spontaneous reactions, not triggered by completely unexpected events: as such, the killing of the eavesdropping Polonius is provoked less by the act of eavesdropping itself – even in his mother's bedroom, Hamlet certainly knows better than to expect complete privacy in a court environment like the one created by his uncle, especially after having caught the fair Ophelia at being an accomplice to yet another such scheme only that very morning – but rather by his mistaken belief that he is killing Claudius (and with the benefit of at least the semblance of a presentable excuse, at that). And secondly, whereas before his almost-encounter with Fortinbras, once our Prince's emotions are brought to the boil he lets them reign freely and unchecked by either himself or others, in the quarrel with Laertes he is able to contain them in the end, albeit only with difficulty (and undoubtedly greatly helped by Horatio's soothing presence); and indeed, we now even see him express regret for his outburst and vow to apologise.

The reason for this change, I believe, is that the (almost-)encounter with Fortinbras brings about a crucial turnaround, in which Hamlet realises, once and for all, how his own moral code – indeed, how the meaning of life, the reason for man's existence on earth; all those questions he has been pondering in To be, or not to be – should apply to the profoundly unbalanced situation into which Claudius's deeds have plunged his world; which realisation, in turn, finally also allows him to reconcile his mental and emotional state: Up until his departure from Denmark, his emotionality and rashness go hand in hand with the destructive nature of his actions; but the reality check brought about by his semi-meeting with Fortinbras prompts him to move from a man of passion (and passionate doubts) to a man of both reason and action. Only now, his thoughts stop wavering back and forth, hovering here and there and paralysing him both by their profundity and by their lack of focus; and in the same way, only now his passion is no longer uncontrolled but guided by his brain, and he quite conceivably would finally have made good on his father's charge of revenge even if Claudius had not terminally forced his hand. Because significantly, upon encountering Fortinbras's army (even if only from afar), and upon then comparing himself to the Norwegian prince, he concludes another soliloquy with the words "O, from this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth;" and unlike on other occasions, including even the desperate "O vengeance!" at the center of "rogue and peasant slave, which is not only preceded by expressions of profound self-loathing for cowardice but also immediately followed by more of the same ("Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, that I, the son of a dear father murther'd, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must (like a whore) unpack my heart with words"), there is no longer any qualification whatsoever to Hamlet's vows of "bloody thoughts" upon seeing Fortinbras's example: now the code of revenge is finally rationalised and firmly in place. And he not only makes good on these vows – pointlessly, but certainly no longer spontaneously – in the persons of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; when after his return to Elsinore Horatio warns him that Claudius must shortly learn of their fate (and thus be put on his guard against Hamlet), his sole grim, curtly resolved response is "It will be short; the interim is mine, and a man's life is no more than to say 'one.'" (For more on all of this, including the interpretative questions associated with the fact that the "bloody thoughts" monologue – "How all occasions do inform against me" – is only contained in the 1604 Second Quarto, not also the 1623 "First Folio", see the respective soliloquy page).

This move from a man torn up by his doubts and emotions to one who has learned to control his passion and put it to a greater purpose, then, also goes some way towards answering another key question associated with the Prince's character, namely, that about the precise nature of his weakness and [his] melancholy: Is Hamlet really, truly mad? No, I think not so.

We certainly can't conclude as much from the persistent use of the term "melancholy" itself which did, after all, denote everything from genuine lunacy to various saner states of mental unrest in Shakespeare's times; nor from the Prince's manifold passionate outbursts, nor even from the fact that he himself expressly proclaims his state of mind to have been madness when "courting [Laertes's] favours" before their final duel. Because for all that, and however violent the Prince's fits of temper may be, about his presumed madness he expressly warns us early on, through a remark to Horatio and Sentinel Marcellus immediately after his first encounter with his father's Ghost, that he "perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on;" and then again, after having set his mother to rights about her (unwitting) complicity – or at the very least, complacency – in her first husband's murder, he tells Gertrude rather matter-of-factly (particularly when compared with his violent outburst only seconds earlier) that his renewed conversation with his father's Ghost was not the product of his own disturbed mind but rather, her own inability to see the Ghost is an indication of her own taintedness: "It is not madness that I have utt'red. ... Mother, for love of grace, lay not that flattering unction to your soul that not your trespass but my madness speaks." And he admonishes her not ever to let Claudius "make [her] to ravel all this matter out, that [he (Hamlet)] essentially [is] not in madness, but mad in craft." Indeed, I think it is significant that both of these comments on his supposed madness – first to Horatio and Marcellus, then to Gertrude – come immediately on the heels of an encounter with his father's Ghost, who although extremely haunting is ultimately a force for good in my view. So, too, then, it is only logical for the Prince to maintain appearances and keep up the madness act when seeking Laertes's pardon before their final duel, all the while letting his childhood friend know by implication that this just might be all he is able to say in public, but that there is actually much, much more to his story. (A fuller interpretation of this last scene can, again, be found on the corresponding soliloquy page.)

"But what about the classics?" I can now hear someone wondering aloud. "You keep telling us how Shakespeare loved them and used them as his inspiration over and over again ... so wouldn't he also have drawn on the Oresteia, if no other classical source, in fashioning the Prince's character? Never mind that Saxo Grammaticus's Danish Prince Amleth may only have been faking it – but didn't Orestes, at least, really do turn mad after all?"

Certainly, among the elements not to be neglected in the analysis of any of Shakespeare's plays are their manifold references to the great Greek tragedies, both structurally and in dialogue, and in "Hamlet" they are in evidence with particular strength; to the point that their sheer number alone almost makes me want to to set the whole production on Mount Olympos, or at the Court of Mycenae or in any old amphitheatre, instead of medieval or early Renaissance Denmark (and I'm pretty sure somebody somewhere must have had that idea before and actually realised it). The many references to Greek mythology in this tragedy's dialogue are as little a coincidence as the obvious similarity between its plot and that of the Oresteia: the story of the son of King Agamemnon of Mycenae, who revenges his father's murder at the hand of his mother, Queen Clytaemnestra, and the Queen's lover, Agamemnon's kinsman Aegisthos, only to be struck with madness by the dreadful Erynnies (the revenge goddesses). Our Bard was endowed not only with a playwright's most original inventive genius but also with an unmatched knack to revamp pre-existing material, and you'd have to be blind to miss not just the similarities between this tragedy and the Danish "Amleth" saga but also those between "Hamlet" and the Oresteia. Moreover, the latter received one of its earliest theatrical treatments at the hands of Euripides, on whose works (inter alia) Shakespeare may very well also have drawn in the creation of Pyrrhus and Hecuba and Ophelia's mad ravings.

Even so, while I think we must definitely take Shakespeare's knowledge of the classics into account, I'd be careful to accord them weight virtually to the exclusion of any and all other elements of interpretation. For one thing, this particular tragedy's primary source material was not the Oresteia but the "Amleth" saga, and that Danish tale's protagonist (like, I think, our Hamlet) is not really mad but merely engaging in a most cunning act of deception. Secondly, unlike in the Oresteia (and the "Amleth" saga, for that matter), there is decidedly more at play here than merely revenge. Thirdly, Hamlet feigns madness before fulfilling his father's commission, not afterwards (indeed, there is no earthly "afterwards" for him at all; only one in Heaven, should he find that it really exists). And lastly, but perhaps most significantly, the references to the Oresteia aren't fully in accord with Ophelia's character and with Hamlet's treatment of the maid, who in turn, I think, is modelled on Cassandra, the Trojan princess (daughter of Priam and Hecuba) whom Agamemnon claims as his bounty after Troy's defeat, and who is likewise killed shortly after her arrival in Mycenae, even before Clytaemnestra and Aegisthos get around to killing the King himself.

Christine de Pizan: L'Epitre d'Othéa – Apollo shoots Coronis after the white raven reported her unfaithfulness (ca. 1450-1475, Burgundy, France; (c) Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts Collection, Royal Dutch Library and Museum Meermanno, The Hague, Netherlands; used by permission)

Now, only a short while before her own dreadful end, Cassandra of course does have a run-in with a rather proud, good-looking, quick-tempered suitor who likewise does seem to bear some similarities with our Prince, at least (but not even exclusively) as far as his relationship with women is concerned. Indeed, Cassandra has a run-in with the paragon of the Hunter himself: with Apollo, the god of archery and brother of Artemis (Diana), herself patron goddess of hunting in her own right – with an Olympian, that is, notorious not only for his eager pursuit of the fair sex but also for his downright vindictive responses to being slighted. In fact, Cassandra is only one of several women doomed by his wrath for turning him down, and compared to some of the other objects of his desire she can almost colour herself lucky: Not counting those suffering of their own accord or at the hands of their nearest and dearest for the god's love (such as the nymph Daphne, whose only recourse from his ardent pursuit is to ask her divine father to turn her into a laurel tree; mortal princesses Leucothea and Psamanthe, who are both killed by their respective fathers when those learn of the god's entanglement with their daughters; Rheo, who is locked up in a chest and put out to sea, also by her father; and Leucothea's sister Clythia, who wilts with longing and jealousy until Apollo himself finally has pity on her and turns her into a sunflower), he famously and impetuously also kills Princess Coronis, the mother of his son Asklepios, when learning of her involvement with another man; the Sibyl of Cumae finds her body drying out and shriveling to infinitesimal size when she refuses him after having obtained the gift of eternal life but not also eternal youth; and the nymph Ocyrrhoe sees her flight from his rather forceful embrace cruelly aborted when he turns her ship into a stone and its skipper into a fish. Compared to all that, what's a bit of madness and the curse never to be believed – the fate that Cassandra suffers at Apollo's hands, just as does Ophelia at Hamlet's (and to a lesser degree, her father's)?

Indeed, it's tempting to take the apparent similarities between Hamlet and Apollo even further: Leaving aside that Apollo is frequently described similar to the way we have come to see our lord Hamlet for at least the better part of the past 100 or so years (blond, blue-eyed, tall, well-built and very handsome), both are patrons of the muses, and of the Thespian arts in particular; more generally speaking and quite crucially, both are defenders of civilisation, and Apollo is, in his incarnation as Phoebus, one of Greek mythology's three sun gods (besides Hyperion and Helios, the Romans' Sol): a figure of light and a counterpoint to Hades, the god of darkness and the afterlife; not unlike the way the Prince of Denmark, in my reading of the play, finds himself opposed to a representative of darkness – namely, Claudius.

However, Hamlet finds himself in this position only most reluctanctly, and in any event, he is about as much endowed with god-like (or at the very least, demigodlike, Herculean) perfection as, in the Prince's own succinct judgment, Claudius is like [his] father; i.e., not at all. Thus, just as the similarities between the Prince of Denmark and Orestes (or the old saga's Amleth) only get us this far, so, too, I think the rays of Apollo's shining figure ultimately shed no conclusive light on the Prince's character, either.

Nor, for that matter, does the antagony of Hamlet and Claudius make our Prince some sort of Christ-like character; a saviour of the (or, his) world. Granted, the subtext involving the duality of heaven and hell, and also the very fact of Hamlet's death, might imply such an interpretation. But for one thing, I honestly don't want to have to imagine from what kind of Babylonian captivity our Lord would have had to free us if His Son had so thoroughly delayed and, let's face it, (almost) bungled His commission before He finally made it to Golgatha. And secondly, Denmark ultimately isn't saved by Hamlet's death but by that of Claudius, which to bring about Hamlet may very well have finally resolved at this point anyway. Of course, his decision is made a whole lot easier by the knowledge that he himself is poisoned now, too; so he has neither time nor his own life nor anything else to lose in killing Claudius.

Yet, remember Hamlet's crucial transformation from a man of doubts and emotions to a man of a resolved mind upon his encounter with Fortinbras, and remember also that, as explained in this site's chapters on Hamlet's World and the roles of Horatio and Fortinbras, I think that it is at least proximate to see the play's Denmark under King Claudius as synonymous with a place of despotism and terror; regardless whether a country, or a town, a village, or a single private estate. Thus, I think in a modern reading Hamlet could very well be seen as symbolically standing for every resistance movement, and every individual working to overthrow such an inhumane regime. For like him, these folks have to summon considerable courage and overcome almost impossible odds, either working alone or – at the very most – from a very small minority base. Like him, many of them also first have to overcome the earthshattering effect which the sudden rise of the forces of terror and inhumanity has on their philosophy of a civilised soicety. Like him, many of them fail (or seem to fail), because of their own mistakes as much as because they lack support, are unable to build alliances, or are simply unable to beat the impossible odds stacked against them. Like him, they are all too often only belatedly celebrated as heroes, such as the Prince of Denmark is when Fortinbras (his heir; the new generation restoring order and hope to his country) orders to have him buried with full military and regal rights because "he was likely, had he been put on, to have prov'd most royally." And like him, more often than not they also have to put on a crafty disguise in order to hide their true intentions and attitude.

So bearing all this in mind, whom do I see as "my" Hamlet? Well ... there are, of course, the splendid performances by Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Derek Jacobi, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Innokenti Smoktunovsky and Mel Gibson, each one of which – different as they are from each other – to me is a landmark that should stand on its own. And on the other end of that scale, I don't even want to think about how many productions of Hamlet I have doubtlessly never even heard of and where (who knows?) somebody might well have nailed my interpretation of the Prince's character to a tee. (Of the five aforementioned ones, Jacobi, Branagh and Smoktunovsky in particular come close; and I will also forever regret that I never saw Sir John Gielgud or Sir Ian McKellen as the Prince – though some of Gielgud's later audio recordings are at least available on CD – nor did I have an opportunity to see the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2004 production starring Toby Stephens which, for all I've read about it, may just have been "it," or very close, in many respects as well.) But if there is one other "big name" actor whom I would particularly like to see slipping into the Prince of Denmark's skin, it would be Edward Norton. Now, I can see a few people out there turning their noses at the fact that he didn't grow up around the hallowed halls of the RSC, the [British] National Theatre, or the Old Vic; and I'll grant you that an early exposure to either of these institutions must necessarily be of considerable advantage in gaining an actor's understanding of the Bard's world, and in learning to get your tongue around his iambic pentameters and 16th century language. But I don't think either of these would prove in the slightest beyond Mr. Norton. (Heck, Mel Gibson could do it, too, and so could Kevin Spacey in Sir Trevor Nunn's recent production of "Richard II" in the Old Vic.) Much more importantly, and quite apart from the fact that Edward Norton also has the right age and looks for the part and that, in his acting as well as in interviews and public appearances, has over and over demonstrated an intelligence easily matching that of our Prince, he has that ability to go from one emotional extreme to another in a matter of split seconds which is so essential to this particular role. To this day, his breakout performance in "Primal Fear" to me is one of the most stunning things in cinema's more recent history – you really have to have seen it to believe how absolutely seamlessly he moves not only between emotional extremes but between entire characters. It's as if he were throwing a switch, and you never even see it happen (let alone see how exactly he does it). And that was when he was still at the beginning of his career ... I really do think we'd be in for a truly breathtaking, tour de force performance if he were cast as Hamlet now. Of course, it's entirely possible (nay, most likely) that he has either played the the Prince on stage already and that this was simply one of those myriad productions never captured on film, or that he has been offered the role and, for whatever reason, declined – not to mention that my little project is "merely the shadow of a dream" in the first place, so chances a wide audience will ever get to see Mr. Norton in my own particular take on the Prince of Denmark's story are practically nil anyway ... but I won't belabour that particular point.

Therefore: My lord Hamlet – The Prince of Denmark – Edward Norton. What think you on't?

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Copyright 2002 – 2009: Ulrike Böhm, all rights reserved.