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Hamlet
BOOKS IN THE STAGED COLLECTION THE COMEDIES
As You Like It
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
THE TRAGEDIES
Hamlet Macbeth
Romeo and Juliet
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First published in the UK by Penguin Books 2024
001
This edition copyright © Penguin Books, 2024 Foreword copyright © Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, 2024
Endmatter copyright © Penguin Books, 2024
Back cover stars copyright © Adobe Stock, 2024
Illustrations by Lucie Corbasson-Guévenoux (Lucie Louxor), 2024
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isbn: 978–0–241–68209–8
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CONTENTS Foreword by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé vii Hamlet 5 Synopsis 289 Glossary 291 Biography 299
FOREWORD
BY FARIDAH ÀBÍKÉ-ÍYÍMÍDÉ
‘to be, or not to be – that is the question’
If you are familiar with The Lion King or are a fan of Beyoncé, then you already know something about the dark and tragic tale of Hamlet, the prince of Denmark. The beloved Disney animation tells a story based on Hamlet – albeit set in the animal kingdom – and the first line from Hamlet’s famous speech, ‘To be or not to be’, can be heard in the song ‘Freakum Dress’. Shakespeare can be found everywhere, and Hamlet is one of those plays that everyone knows or has come across, even if they didn’t know it was Hamlet when they did.
The first time I knowingly engaged with the text was at university. Like many people, I’d had an early introduction to
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Shakespeare at secondary school and fell completely head over heels for the Bard and his stories. So, I jumped at the chance to take a Shakespeare module at university, excited to be introduced to more of Will’s genius. Yet nothing could have prepared me for how much more deeply I could fall down the rabbit hole of my ever-growing love for Shakespeare. I find it hard to adequately summarize all the reasons I am so obsessed with the storytelling of a man who lived and died over four centuries ago. But one of the best (and shortest) answers I can give is the resonance and relevance of these stories today.
‘to thine own self be true’
Hamlet is widely known as a tale of royalty and ruin, but it is also a ghost story. It is a tale of the ghosts that haunt us – both the spectral kind and the figurative ghosts that live in the deepest, darkest corners of our minds. The play sees Hamlet desperately trying to fix the rotten core of the institution he is a part of, while battling the grief of losing his father and his own suicide ideation.
What makes Hamlet such a relevant contemporary story is its bold exploration of the mental health concerns that, it seems, have always plagued young adults. It is a play that bravely asserts that grief should be felt, not suppressed – although if I were to
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give a word of advice to Hamlet and those that see themselves in him: while grief should be felt, it does not have to consume. Just as relevant are Hamlet’s insecurity in his own future and his existentialist fears for what comes next in a world where nothing is certain.
‘something is rotten in the state of denmark’
For me, the great tragedy of Hamlet the character and Hamlet the play is the way the story unravels to illustrate exactly how institutions fail young people – and continue to do so four hundred years later. Hamlet is told that his grief is unmanly, he is ridiculed for responding appropriately to the sudden death of his father, he is ignored as he loudly and persistently expresses his wish to harm himself, and in the end, no one hears him. As a result of this disregard for the concerns and troubles of young Hamlet, there is bloodshed. Everyone dies. This is the consequence of not addressing the institution’s rotten core.
It’s hard not to read Hamlet as a didactic play, as there are so many messages within the story about the human condition. It is widely considered to be Shakespeare’s magnum opus, and I’d argue this is because it’s one of the rare plays in his wide-ranging body of work where we see what could be the playwright’s own
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feelings and life experiences quite openly expressed. Hamlet –which was written and performed shortly after the death of Shakespeare’s eleven-year-old son, Hamnet, and touches on grief and the failures of adults and households – is not only a deeply heartfelt and tragic story, but also perhaps one of his most human.
The ‘everyone dies in the end’ trope seen in young adult fiction can surely be traced back to classic stories such as Hamlet. We see in the books we all love today how the same themes – of institutional failures and young people being left to fend for themselves in a world where their concerns are ignored – come about and are indirectly inspired by Shakespeare.
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Hamlet
THE CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY
ghost of King Hamlet, murdered King of Denmark
hamlet , Prince of Denmark, son of King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude
king claudius , brother of King Hamlet, the new King of Denmark
queen gertrude , widow of King Hamlet, now married to King Claudius
ophelia , daughter of Polonius
laertes , son of Polonius
polonius , counsellor to the King
reynaldo , servant of Polonius
horatio , friend of Prince Hamlet
voltemand
cornelius
rosencrantz
guildenstern
osric
members of the Danish court
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francisco
barnardo
marcellus
Danish soldiers
fortinbras , Prince of Norway
A captain in Fortinbras’s army
ambassadors to Denmark from England
The players , who play the roles of Prologue, Player-King, Player-Queen and Lucianus in The Murder of Gonzago
Two messengers
Sailors
Two clowns , or gravediggers
priest
Attendants, Lords, Guards, Danes, Soldiers, Officers
ACT I
SCENE I
ELSINORE. A PLATFORM BEFORE THE CASTLE
Francisco is at his post. Enter Barnardo
b arnardo
Who’s there?
f rancisco
Nay, answer me. Stand, and unfold yourself.
b arnardo
Long live the King!
f rancisco
Barnardo?
b arnardo
He.
7
f rancisco
You come most carefully upon your hour.
b arnardo
’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
f rancisco
For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.
b arnardo
Have you had quiet guard?
f rancisco
Not a mouse stirring.
b arnardo
Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
f rancisco
I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who’s there?
Enter Horatio and Marcellus
h oratio
Friends to this ground.
HAMLET 8
m arcellus
And liegemen to the Dane.
f rancisco
Give you good night.
m arcellus
O, farewell, honest soldier. Who hath relieved you?
f rancisco
Barnardo has my place. Give you good night.
Exit Francisco
m arcellus
Holla, Barnardo!
b arnardo
Say, what, is Horatio there?
h oratio
A piece of him.
b arnardo
Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.
m arcellus
What, has this thing appeared again tonight?
b arnardo
I have seen nothing.
ACT I – SCENE I 9
m arcellus
Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.
Therefore I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night,
That if again this apparition come, He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
h oratio
Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.
b arnardo
Sit down awhile,
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we have two nights seen.
h oratio
Well, sit we down,
And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.
b arnardo
Last night of all,
When yond same star that’s westward from the pole
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
10
HAMLET
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one –
Enter the Ghost
m arcellus
Peace, break thee off. Look, where it comes again.
b arnardo
In the same figure, like the King that’s dead.
m arcellus
Thou art a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio.
b arnardo
Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.
h oratio
Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.
b arnardo
It would be spoke to.
m arcellus
Question it, Horatio.
h oratio
What art thou that usurp’st this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form
ACT I – SCENE I 11
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee, speak!
m arcellus
It is offended.
b arnardo
See, it stalks away.
h oratio
Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!
Exit the Ghost
m arcellus
’Tis gone and will not answer.
b arnardo
How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on’t?
h oratio
Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.
m arcellus
Is it not like the King?
HAMLET 12
h oratio
As thou art to thyself.
Such was the very armour 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.
m arcellus
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour, With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
h oratio
In what particular thought to work I know not.
But, in the gross and scope of my opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
m arcellus
Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land, And why such daily cast of brazen cannon
And foreign mart for implements of war,
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week.
What might be toward that this sweaty haste
ACT I – SCENE I 13
HAMLET
Doth make the night joint- labourer with the day?
Who is’t that can inform me?
h oratio
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,
Thereto 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 covenant
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,
14
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 romage in the land.
b arnardo
I think it be no other but even so.
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armèd through our watch so like the King
That was and is the question of these wars.
h oratio
A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets,
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands
ACT I – SCENE I 15
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.
But soft, behold, lo where it comes again!
Enter the Ghost
I’ll cross it, though it blast me.
The Ghost spreads its arms
Stay, illusion.
If thou hast any sound or use of voice,
Speak to me.
If there be any good thing to be done
That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
Speak to me.
If thou art privy to thy country’s fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
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HAMLET
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, Speak of it.
The cock crows
Stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.
m arcellus
Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
h oratio
Do, if it will not stand.
b arnardo
’Tis here.
h oratio
’Tis here!
Exit the Ghost
m arcellus
’Tis gone!
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
ACT I – SCENE I 17
To offer it the show of violence,
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
b arnardo
It was about to speak when the cock crew.
h oratio
And then it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill- sounding throat
Awake the god of day, and at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine. And of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
m arcellus
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike;
HAMLET 18
No fairy takes; nor witch hath power to charm;
So hallowed and so gracious is that time.
h oratio
So have I heard and do in part believe it.
But look, the morn in russet mantle clad
Walks over the dew of yon high eastward hill.
Break we our watch up, and by my advice
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
Unto young Hamlet. For, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
m arcellus
Let’s do’t, I pray. And I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.
Exit all
ACT I – SCENE I
SCENE II
A ROOM OF STATE IN THE CASTLE
Enter King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Voltemand, Cornelius, Lords and Attendants k ing c laudius
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,
The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy –
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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.
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 the 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 bed- rid, 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
ACT I – SCENE II 21
