Hamlet the Prince Who Should Be King

Succession Yesterday and Today

Governing with the consent of the governed 

In Kingdoms, the people were generally happy with kings and lines of succession, because it meant social, economic, legal, and cultural stability. Once crowned, a king wasn’t to be monkeyed with and the rules of primogeniture simplified the process. Even to think of killing a sitting king was treason, punishable by death. (How to know what one is thinking? Care must be taken not to look or infer what one was thinking.) Shakespeare’s audience was hyper-sensitive to succession rights. Queen Elizabeth’s demise was eminent and she had no heirs. 

in a democracy succession is sticky, missy and rowdy. And today is hyperventilating. What can were learn?

Hamlet is the son of the dead king. Uncle Claudius by some unknown strategium has managed to steal the crown and seal his legitimacy by marring Hamlet’s Mother. He is a dangerous Machiavellian. 

Hamlet’s first words: “A little more then kin…” — he is more than his mother’s son and Claudius’ nephew, He is “Denmark”, born, bread, and trained by his father — the prince who should king — an added complication to the loss of a father is the hasty marriage of his mother. 

Horatio tell us while watching on the platform:

“HORATIO (Act I Scene 1 Line 70)

As thou art to thyself. 

Such was the very armor he had on 

When he the ambitious Norway combated. 

So frowned he once when, in an angry parle, 

He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice. 

’Tis strange.”

and—?

“HORATIO (Act I, Scene 1 Line 91)

That can I. 

At least the whisper goes so: our last king, 

Whose image even but now appeared to us, 

Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, 

There to pricked on by a most emulate pride,

Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet 

(For so this side of our known world esteemed him) 

Did slay this Fortinbras, who by a sealed compact, 

Well ratified by law and heraldry, 

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands

Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror. 

Against the which a moiety competent 

Was gagèd by our king, which had returned 

To the inheritance of Fortinbras 

Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same comart

And carriage of the article designed, .

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras, 

Of unimprovèd mettle hot and full, 

Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there 

Sharked up a list of lawless resolutes

For food and diet to some enterprise 

That hath a stomach in ’t; which is no other 

(As it doth well appear unto our state) 

But to recover of us, by strong hand 

And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands

So by his father lost. And this, I take it, 

Is the main motive of our preparations, 

The source of this our watch, and the chief head 

Of this posthaste and rummage in the land.”

Hamlet’s father and Fortinbras fought in single combat to the death to settle the land disputes, instead of a battle between armies — winner take all. Old Hamlet won. There is another young prince who has lost a father. With old Hamlet’s death. Young Fortinbras is getting frisky and wants the land returned. The unusual succession of Claudius has upset the balance-of-power. 

______

Claudius try’s a fix with a slippery, convoluted manipulative speech covering his tracery  with oozing platitudes to legitimize his coup. 

“KING (Act I, Scene 2, Line 1)

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death 

The memory be green, and that it us befitted 

To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom 

To be contracted in one brow of woe, 

Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature

That we with wisest sorrow think on him 

Together with remembrance of ourselves. 

Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, 

Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state, 

Have we (as ’twere with a defeated joy,

With an auspicious and a dropping eye, 

With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, 

In equal scale weighing delight and dole) 

Taken to wife. Nor have we herein barred 

Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone

With this affair along. For all, our thanks. 

(Claudius thanking those who put him in power)

Now follows that you know. Young Fortinbras, 

Holding a weak supposal of our worth 

Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death 

Our state to be disjoint and out of frame, 

Colleaguèd with this dream of his advantage, 

He hath not failed to pester us with message 

Importing the surrender of those lands 

Lost by his father, with all bonds of law, 

To our most valiant brother—so much for him. 

Now for ourself and for this time of meeting. 

Thus much the business is: we have here writ 

To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras, 

Who, impotent and bedrid, scarcely hears 

Of this his nephew’s purpose, to suppress 

His further gait herein, in that the levies, 

The lists, and full proportions are all made 

Out of his subject; and we here dispatch 

You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand, 

For bearers of this greeting to old Norway, 

Giving to you no further personal power 

To business with the King more than the scope 

Of these dilated articles allow. 

Giving them a paper. 

Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.”

______

What can Hamlet do? Not much! his uncle had all his ducks in a row before murdering Hamlets father and took advantage of Hamlet being away at school and his grief. Claudius has stolen the kingship from both Hamlet and his father and is living on a razor’s edge. 

“HAMLET, aside (Act I, Scene 2, Line 67)

A little more than kin and less than kind.”

“KING (Act I Scene 2, Line)

…We pray you, throw to earth 

This unprevailing woe and think of us 

As of a father; for let the world take note, 

You are the most immediate to our throne, 

(Claudius throws Hamlet a sop. Be patient your turn will come.)

And with no less nobility of love 

Than that which dearest father bears his son

Do I impart toward you. For your intent 

In going back to school in Wittenberg, 

It is most retrograde to our desire, 

And we beseech you, bend you to remain 

Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye, 

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.”

Claudius wants to keep his eye on Hamlet, not off where a conspiracy can be hatched. 

______

Laertes warns Ophelia that Hamlet’s royal status as ruler to be my quench their relationship. Hamlet is the elephant in the room. Hamlet’ life is not his own. 

“LAERTES (Act I, Scene 3, Line 18)

…Perhaps he loves you now,

And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch 

The virtue of his will; but you must fear, 

His greatness weighed, his will is not his own, 

For he himself is subject to his birth. 

He may not, as unvalued persons do, 

Carve for himself, for on his choice depends 

The safety and the health of this whole state. 

And therefore must his choice be circumscribed 

Unto the voice and yielding of that body 

Whereof he is the head…”

______

BIG PROBLEM: Hamlet aware of his uncle’s treachery must proceed CAREFULLY!  A quick slaughter of the king is not the answer (and the play would be over). If he is to rule, he has to have the consent of his people. A son killing a father for the crown is an old story. The killing of the Lords annotated is not acceptable. If Hamlet gives any hint of suspicion or ambition his life will be in danger. He pretends madness. He wants do it right. All his father’s gains can be lost. 

“HAMLET (Act I, Scene 5 Line 210)

…The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite That ever I was born to set it right!…”

______

Ambassadors arrive from Norway. Fortinbras’ wings have been clipped. But he has been given the right to cross Denmark to attack Poland. He will bide his time with an army inside Denmark. 

“VOLTEMAND  Act II, Scene 2, Line 63

Most fair return of greetings and desires. 

Upon our first, he sent out to suppress 

His nephew’s levies, which to him appeared 

To be a preparation ’gainst the Polack, 

But, better looked into, he truly found 

It was against your Highness. Whereat, grieved 

That so his sickness, age, and impotence 

Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests 

On Fortinbras, which he, in brief, obeys, 

Receives rebuke from Norway, and, in fine, 

Makes vow before his uncle never more 

To give th’ assay of arms against your Majesty. 

Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy, 

Gives him three-score thousand crowns in annual 

    fee 

And his commission to employ those soldiers, 

So levied as before, against the Polack,  

With an entreaty, herein further shown, 

He gives a paper. 

That it might please you to give quiet pass 

Through your dominions for this enterprise, 

On such regards of safety and allowance 

As therein are set down.”

______

An actor on-the-spur-of-the-moment has performed a scene with more passion and truth than Hamlet sees around him. A question often addressed in Shakespeare’s plays: Is there more reality on the stage than in life? Is life just a stage? What to do? Hamlet will use the truth on stage to get the final justification to kill his uncle. 

“HAMLET (Act II, Scene 2, Line 576)

Now I am alone.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! 

Is it not monstrous that this player here, 

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, 

Could force his soul so to his own conceit 

That from her working all his visage wanned, 

Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, 

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting 

With forms to his conceit—and all for nothing! 

For Hecuba! 

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, 

That he should weep for her? What would he do 

Had he the motive and the cue for passion 

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears 

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, 

Make mad the guilty and appall the free, 

Confound the ignorant and amaze indeed 

The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, 

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak 

Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, 

And can say nothing—no, not for a king 

Upon whose property and most dear life 

A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward? 

Who calls me “villain”? breaks my pate across? 

Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face? 

Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i’ th’ throat 

As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? 

Ha! ’Swounds, I should take it! For it cannot be 

But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall 

To make oppression bitter, or ere this 

I should have fatted all the region kites 

With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain! 

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless 

    villain! 

O vengeance! 

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, 

That I, the son of a dear father murdered, 

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, 

Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words 

And fall a-cursing like a very drab,  

A stallion! Fie upon ’t! Foh! 

About, my brains!—Hum, I have heard 

That guilty creatures sitting at a play 

Have, by the very cunning of the scene, 

Been struck so to the soul that presently 

They have proclaimed their malefactions; 

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak 

With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players 

Play something like the murder of my father 

Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks; 

I’ll tent him to the quick. If he do blench, 

I know my course. The spirit that I have seen 

May be a devil, and the devil hath power 

T’ assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps, 

Out of my weakness and my melancholy, 

As he is very potent with such spirits, 

Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds 

More relative than this. The play’s the thing 

Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”

______

Now. Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquy. Hamlet is ready to act, facing an executioners remorse. He is not where he wants to be. He was loved of father and mother, at school with friends, the love of his life waiting for him at home, time for a noble father to teach him the affairs of state, full of youth and hope, living the good life. Then the rug was pulled out from under him. His plate is full, justice, revenge, duty, honor, love, responsibility, and courage. What alternative? He gets his pause, a calm before the storm. If he is CAREFUL, he can be king, a good king, a legitimate king, have Ophelia and keep Fortinbras out of his hair. 

“HAMLET (Act III, Scene 1, Line 63)

To be or not to be—that is the question: 

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer 

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles 

And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep— 

No more—and by a sleep to say we end 

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks 

That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation 

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep— 

To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub, 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, 

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 

Must give us pause. There’s the respect 

That makes calamity of so long life. 

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 

Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, 

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,  

The insolence of office, and the spurns 

That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes, 

When he himself might his quietus make 

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, 

To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 

But that the dread of something after death, 

The undiscovered country from whose bourn 

No traveler returns, puzzles the will 

And makes us rather bear those ills we have 

Than fly to others that we know not of? 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, 

And thus the native hue of resolution 

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, 

And enterprises of great pitch and moment 

With this regard their currents turn awry 

And lose the name of action.—Soft you now, 

The fair Ophelia.—Nymph, in thy orisons 

Be all my sins remembered.”

“ROSENCRANTZ (Act III, Scene 2, Line 369)

How can that be, when you have the 

voice of the King himself for your succession in 

Denmark? 

HAMLET 

Ay, sir, but “While the grass grows”—the 

proverb is something musty.”

(“While the grass grows, the horse starves.” In other words, your dreams may come to fruition a bit too late to be useful dreams and expectations may come to late.)

________

Hamlet enlists Horatio help to justify his killing the King, that proper succession will proceed. 

“HAMLET (Act III, Scene 2, Line 82)

One scene of it comes near the circumstance 

Which I have told thee of my father’s death. 

I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, 

Even with the very comment of thy soul 

Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt 

Do not itself unkennel in one speech, 

It is a damnèd ghost that we have seen, 

And my imaginations are as foul 

As Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note, 

For I mine eyes will rivet to his face, 

And, after, we will both our judgments join 

In censure of his seeming. 

HORATIO 

Well, my lord. 

If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing 

And ’scape detecting, I will pay the theft.…

HAMLET 

…O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for 

a thousand pound. Didst perceive? 

HORATIO 

Very well, my lord. 

HAMLET 

Upon the talk of the poisoning? 

HORATIO 

I did very well note him.”

______

Hamlet now has license. He will execute Claudius but not his mother. 

“HAMLET (Act III, Scene 2, Line 329)

Tis now the very witching time of night, 

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes 

    out 

Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot 

    blood 

And do such bitter business as the day 

Would quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother. 

O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever 

The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom. 

Let me be cruel, not unnatural. 

I will speak daggers to her, but use none. 

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites: 

How in my words somever she be shent, 

To give them seals never, my soul, consent.”

______

Claudius now knows that Hamlet knows something and he must get rid of him. 

“KING (Act III Scene 3 Line 1)

I like him not, nor stands it safe with us 

To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you. 

I your commission will forthwith dispatch, 

And he to England shall along with you. 

The terms of our estate may not endure

Hazard so near ’s as doth hourly grow 

Out of his brows.

GUILDENSTERN 

We will ourselves provide. 

Most holy and religious fear it is 

To keep those many many bodies safe

That live and feed upon your Majesty.”

______

Ready for the kill Hamlet postpones, fearing unjustly sending Claudius to heaven. 

“HAMLET (Act III, Scene 3, Line 76)

Now might I do it pat, now he is a-praying, 

And now I’ll do ’t.  

He draws his sword. 

And so he goes to heaven, 

And so am I revenged. That would be scanned: 

A villain kills my father, and for that, 

I, his sole son, do this same villain sent

To heavenl 

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge. 

He took my father grossly, full of bread, 

With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; 

And how his audit stands who knows save heaven. 

But in our circumstance and course of thought 

’Tis heavy with him. And am I then revenged 

To take him in the purging of his soul, 

When he is fit and seasoned for his passage? 

No. 

Up sword, and know thou a more horrid hent. 

He sheathes his sword. 

When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, 

Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed,  

At game, a-swearing, or about some act 

That has no relish of salvation in ’t— 

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, 

And that his soul may be as damned and black 

As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays. 

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. 

Hamlet exits.”

______

In his mother’s closet Hamlet thinks he has killed the King and express his deep resentment at having the crown stolen.  

“HAMLET (Act III, Scene 4, Line 110)

A murderer and a villain, 

A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe 

Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings, 

A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, 

That from a shelf the precious diadem stole 

And put it in his pocket—“

Shakespeare Scholar Gabriel Josipovici says of Hamlet’s action:

“It is clear that Hamlet believes, or hopes that he has killed Claudius. If he is right, he will have fulfilled his fathers injunction but not consciously killed the King — only a spy lurking behind the curtain, who subsequently turns out to be the King. In a sense he will have done the deed without doing the deed.”

IRONIC COMPLICATION: Hamlet seeking revenge for his father’s murder has now killed someone else’s father. The father of his sweetheart and a friend. 

______

Claudius dispatches Hamlet to what he believes is his death and reveals why he has been handling Hamlet with kid gloves — Hamlet’s popularity with the people of Denmark. 

“KING (Act III, Scene 3, Line 1)

I have sent to seek him and to find the body. 

How dangerous is it that this man goes loose! 

Yet must not we put the strong law on him. 

He’s loved of the distracted multitude, 

Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes; 

And, where ’tis so, th’ offender’s scourge is weighed, 

But never the offense. To bear all smooth and even, 

This sudden sending him away must seem 

Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown 

By desperate appliance are relieved 

Or not at all.”

______

Hamlet runs into Fortinbras and his army and suspects the ruse and Denmark’s danger that has been brewing since his father’s death. This scene along with others is often cut from the play dumbing down this nagging problem that is raging in the background. With these cuts, suddenly, at the plays end Fortinbras appears like a Deus Ex Machina and fixes everything.   

“HAMLET (ACT IV, Scene 4, Line 32) 

How all occasions do inform against me 

And spur my dull revenge. What is a man 

If his chief good and market of his time 

Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. 

Sure He that made us with such large discourse, 

Looking before and after, gave us not 

That capability and godlike reason 

To fust in us unused. Now whether it be 

Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple 

Of thinking too precisely on th’ event 

(A thought which, quartered, hath but one part 

    wisdom 

And ever three parts coward), I do not know 

Why yet I live to say “This thing’s to do,” 

Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means 

To do ’t. Examples gross as Earth exhort me: 

Witness this army of such mass and charge, 

Led by a delicate and tender prince, 

Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed 

Makes mouths at the invisible event, 

Exposing what is mortal and unsure 

To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, 

Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great 

Is not to stir without great argument, 

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw 

When honor’s at the stake. How stand I, then, 

That have a father killed, a mother stained, 

Excitements of my reason and my blood, 

And let all sleep, while to my shame I see 

The imminent death of twenty thousand men 

That for a fantasy and trick of fame 

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot 

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, 

Which is not tomb enough and continent 

To hide the slain? O, from this time forth 

My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!”

______

When Laertes learns of his father demise he angrily returns and easily assembles a mob to protest, declaring Laertes their king. 

“QUEEN (Act IV, Scene 5, Line 111)

Alack, what noise is this? 

KING 

Attend! 

Where is my Switzers? Let them guard the door. 

Enter a Messenger. 

What is the matter? 

MESSENGER 

Save yourself, my lord. 

The ocean, overpeering of his list, 

Eats not the flats with more impiteous haste

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, 

O’erbears your officers. The rabble call him “lord,” 

And, as the world were now but to begin, 

Antiquity forgot, custom not known, 

The ratifiers and props of every word, 

They cry “Choose we, Laertes shall be king!” 

Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds, 

“Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!” 

A noise within. 

QUEEN 

How cheerfully on the false trail they cry. 

O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs! 

KING 

The doors are broke. 

Enter Laertes with others. 

LAERTES 

Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all without. 

ALL 

No, let’s come in! 

LAERTES 

I pray you, give me leave. 

ALL 

We will, we will. 

LAERTES 

I thank you. Keep the door. Followers exit. O, thou 

    vile king, 

Give me my father! 

QUEEN 

Calmly, good Laertes. 

LAERTES 

That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me 

    bastard, 

Cries “cuckold” to my father, brands the harlot 

Even here between the chaste unsmirchèd brow 

Of my true mother. 

KING 

What is the cause, Laertes, 

That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?— 

Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person. 

There’s such divinity doth hedge a king 

That treason can but peep to what it would, 

Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes, 

Why thou art thus incensed.—Let him go, 

    Gertrude.— 

Speak, man.”

The King asserts, in the lines that I have put in bold above, that his sovereignty is divinely protected and inviolable. He than skillful placates Laertes and diverts his attention to this sorry state of his sister. 

 

______

When Hamlet stabs Claudius despite his accusations the onlookers still cry out: “Treason!” That’s how tough the problem is that Hamlets was dealing with. 

“HAMLET (Act V, Scene 2, Line 71)

Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon— 

He that hath killed my king and whored my mother, 

Popped in between th’ election and my hopes, 

Thrown out his angle for my proper life, 

And with such cozenage—is ’t not perfect  

    conscience 

To quit him with this arm? And is ’t not to be 

    damned 

To let this canker of our nature come 

In further evil?”

“HAMLET (Act V, Scene 2, Line 355)

The point envenomed too! Then, venom, to thy work. 

Hurts the king. 

ALL 

Treason, treason! 

KING 

O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.”

______

Hamlet’s last wish is that his story be told, that he tried to do it right — justly —courageously. That his seemingly immoral act was moral.  He is not concerned about his eternal salvation or his reputation, but to a restoration of order to what seems to him a shattered world. Regicide was unacceptable in his time an offense against state and God, even when a ruler was corrupt, unjust or cruel. 

“HAMLET (Act V, Scene 2, Line 364)

Heaven make thee free of it. I follow thee.— 

I am dead, Horatio.—Wretched queen, adieu.—  

You that look pale and tremble at this chance, 

That are but mutes or audience to this act, 

Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death, 

Is strict in his arrest), O, I could tell you— 

But let it be.—Horatio, I am dead. 

Thou livest; report me and my cause aright 

To the unsatisfied.”

______

Hamlet wrestled with: how to get justice, an accepted legitimate transfer of power, and protection of his father’s legacy. He tried to get it right. Yes, there are other powerful themes in the play, but they all live within this context, a different context than we live in today. We are having our own problems with succession. In the end: Hamlet, his father, mother, uncle, love, Laertes, Plonius, Rosercrantz and Guildenstern are all dead. Fortinbras rules Denmark. Would it have been better if Hamlet has quickly killed Claudius, banished his mother and demanded the crown? 

An Ironic Tragedy — also played out in our lives when trying to do it right end badly. 

As Hamlet Said: 

“…—the rest is silence.”

From my Tub to yours,

Carl

Quinn Mattfeld as Hamlet in the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s 2019 production of Hamlet. (Photo by Karl Hugh. Copyright Utah Shakespeare Festival 2019.)