Day: 2 October 2015

In the cold night, Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus keep watch. Meanwhile, from inside the castle they hear partying. Hamlet talks to Claudius about his constant merry-making, saying that it makes the Danish look corrupt. Hamlet links indulgence of desires to corruption then says “what looks like enjoyment only hides internal corruption”. The Ghost appears and beckons Hamlet to follow it. But Horatio and Marcellus try to hold him back: they think the ghost might be trying to trap him saying “Religion provides no answers what looks good could be evil”. Hamlet breaks free of them and follows after the Ghost. Marcellus then says “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” and they both run after Hamlet.

As Laertes prepares to go to France, He warns his sister, Ophelia, about not falling for Hamlet, someone whose passions will differ over time and someone who is supposed to marry just to stay as King and to maintain the state. Laertes worries about Ophelia’s pride and honour as well as Hamlet worries about his mother’s.
Ophelia promises to obey, but sarcastically tells Laertes to listen to his own advice.
Polonius enters, tells his son for taking long, then immediately starts giving him fatherly advice about how to act: be sociable, to not lend or borrow money, to be true to your own self etc. Finally, he lets Laertes go. The Father and son talk reflects Claudius’s with Hamlet, except Polonius isn’t trying to hide a secret. Polonius asks Ophelia what Laertes was talking to her about and Ophelia answers saying “Hamlet”. After Polonius asks her to explain, she says that Hamlet has expressed his love for her. Polonius tells her that Hamlet is only pretending to love her only to sleep with her, and forbids her to talk to him. Ophelia again promises to obey.

The morning after Horatio and the guards see the ghost, King Claudius speaks to his courtiers, explaining his marriage to Gertrude, the dead king’s widow wife and the mother of Prince Hamlet. Claudius says that he misses his brother but has chosen to lessen Denmark’s mourning by his marriage with Gertrude. He mentions that Fortinbras has written to him, demanding the surrender of the lands that King Hamlet won from Fortinbras’s father.
His speech ended, Claudius turns to Laertes, the son of Polonius. Laertes expresses his desire to return to France, where he was staying before his return to Denmark for Claudius’s coronation. Polonius gives him permission, and Claudius grants Laertes his consent as well.

Turning to Prince Hamlet, Claudius asks why “the clouds still hang” upon him, as Hamlet still wears black mourning clothes. Gertrude urges him to take off his “nightly colour,” but he replies bitterly that his inner sorrow is so much that his appearance is just a poor reflection of it. Using fatherly advice, Claudius says that all fathers die, and all sons will lose their fathers. When a son loses a father, he is meant to mourn, but to mourn for too long is unmanly and inappropriate. Claudius tells Hamlet to think of him as a father, reminding Hamlet that he stands in line to succeed to the throne after Claudius’s death.

Claudius then says that he does not wish for Hamlet to return to school at Wittenberg (where he had been studying before his father’s death), as Hamlet wanted to do. Gertrude repeats her husband, showing a desire for Hamlet to stay close to her. Hamlet forcefully agrees to do that. Claudius says that he is very pleased by Hamlet’s decision to stay that he will celebrate with parties and cannon fire, an old tradition called “the king’s rouse.”

now alone, Hamlet expresses that he wishes he could die, that he could evaporate and cease to exist. He wishes that God had not made suicide a sin. Anguished, he mourns his father’s death and his mother’s fast marriage to his uncle. He remembers how much his parents loved each other, and the thought that now, not yet two months after his father’s death, his mother marries his uncle, angers him.