1.

Comment on the following text by answering the questions below:

HAMLET I will not speak. Then I will follow it.

HORATIO Do not my lord.

HAMLET Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin’s fee, 65
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.

HORATIO What if it tempt you toward the flood my lord,

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff 70
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of
reason, And draw you into madness? Think of
it.
[
…
]
(Hamlet 1.4.63-74)

(65) Set: value; at a pin’s fee: as worth a pin.

(69) Flood: sea.
(71) Beetles: projects itself, threateningly overhangs.
(73) Sovereignty of reason: reason of its ability to govern you.

1.1. Explain what Hamlet and Horatio are talking about. What has happened in the
previous scene? What is about to happen in the next one?

In this scene, Horatio and Hamlet are talking about whether or not he should follow
the ghost. Horatio is convinced that it is a bad idea since the ghost could harm his
friend, Prince Hamlet, in more ways than one, for instance, tempting him towards the
sea, off the summit of a cliff or worse change into a different form that is too much to
comprehend for any human being causing his madness. However, Hamlet is so
determined to find out what the ghost wants that he follows it despite the pleas from
Marcellus and Horatio who in the end have no choice but to follow them so as to try to
keep their master safe.

The previous scene takes place in the Kings adviser’s house, Lord Polonius. His son
Laertes warns his sister Ophelia to be warily of Hamlet. He asks her to protect her honor
and not to take Hamlet’s professions to her too seriously but to view them as a part of
her life that will soon pass. After Laertes, his father also talks to Ophelia about dealing
with men and how to maintain her honor. He is particularly interested in how she
interacts with his romantic interest, Prince Hamlet. In the next scene, the ghost
confesses to being King Hamlet’s spirit. It asks to be avenged for the cruel and unjust
murder of the king by a wretch who now sits at the throne. The ghost further explains
that the king died after his brother poured the juice of the cursed hebenon into his ears.
The ghost is also angry about the fact that his wife is already married to King Claudia.
He seeks revenge for his cruel murder but asks his son not to let his anger turn him
against his mother. He wants her to be left to the heavens and the sting of her actions.
The scene comes to an end after Hamlet makes a pact with his friends not to share any
detail about what had happened with anyone.

1.2. What is Horatio’s attitude towards the Ghost? What is Hamlet’s? What other
different theories about ghosts appear in the play?

At first, when told about the ghost´s apparition, Horatio is skeptical: “Tush, tush,
´twill not appear” he says. But when he sees it he becomes completely struck with
terror. His reaction to the ghost functions to overcome the audience´s sense of disbelief
since for a man as skeptical and intelligent as Horatio, to fear the ghost is really
convincing. Horatio´s stance towards the ghost, as exemplified in this excerpt, would
represent the protestant theory that ghosts were normally devils taking the shape of dead
friends or relatives to abuse those to whom they appeared which is also the view given
by the future king James I in his Daemonologie. But Horatio also sees the ghost as an ill
omen, an indication of impending political unrest in Denmark, maybe even a military
invasion.

Hamlet´s attitude towards the nature of the Ghost is one of hesitation. He is

conscious of the fact that it could be a spirit from hell. In fact many productions of the
play develop Hamlet following the Ghost while using his sword hilt as a cross to defend
himself against evil. However he is determined to talk to it since it takes his father´s
shape. Another theory about the origin of the Ghost is the one provided by Marcellus
and Barnardo, that ghosts were spirits of the dead from Purgatory to ask a pious soul to
solve a problem in order to find eternal rest. The Ghost tells Hamlet about the torture he
is suffering in purgatory. He cannot go to heaven because he died before he could
confess and without the last rites so now his sins have to be purged. The playgoer of the
time had two reasons not to believe him and to suspect that the Ghost was an evil force.
On the one hand Protestantism had abolished the notion of purgatory and in the other
hand the Protestant Church judged revenge as a sin, for which the revenger´s soul was
dammed.

The last theory about the presence of the Ghost would be represented by Gertrude in
Act 3 Scene 4 when she accounts Hamlet seeing his dead father´s specter by attributing
it to his deranged state of mind: “This is the very coinage of your brain” she says.
Ghosts would be then mere hallucinations, creations of melancholic minds.

1.3. Explain the relevance of the dialectic between reason and madness in these lines
and relate it to the treatment of madness in the play as a whole.

Horatio´s words “…And there assume some other horrible form which might deprive
your sovereignty of reason”, anticipate one of the play´s main topics: madness. Not long
after these lines, in Act I scene 5, Hamlet encounters the Ghost and learns that his father
was murdered by his uncle who, although it is only suggested, was having an adulterous
relationship with his mother. Besides, he is saddled with the responsibility of having to
take revenge. One could think this should be enough to make Hamlet lose his sanity but
Hamlet surprisingly after the encounter conveys to his friends his resolution to “put on
an antic disposition”. What Shakespeare meant by “antic” is unclear but is generally
understood that Hamlet is going to feign madness, perhaps to trick Claudius into
confessing his guilt or even to protect himself from further violence. From this moment
on we are left with the doubt whether at some point in the play Hamlet´s pretended
insanity turns real. Certainly at some points Hamlet seems to turn on an off lunacy
according to his interests as acknowledged by himself when he declares “I am but mad
north-norht-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw” (Act II
scene 2). There are other instances when we are bound to regard Hamlet as deprived of
reason: when he assaults Ophelia, although this is just reported by Ophelia to Polonius.
Hamlet killing Polonius in the closet scene and his subsequent behavior is hardly
explained without resorting to the madness argument. The possibility of Hamlet having
lost reason for real is further reinforced by Hamlet´s own words when he seeks Laertes
´absolution for having murdered his father in Act 5 Scene 2:

“Was´t Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet,

If Hamlet from himself be tan away,
And when he´s not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it then? His madness (…)”

Indeed, at some points Hamlet truly believes that reason has forsaken him. For
instance, in Act IV Scene 4 he considers that without reason a person is no more than a
beast. He attributes his procrastination in taking revenge to either “animal-like
mindlessness, or the cowardly hesitation”.
A different treatment of madness in the play is applied to the character of Ophelia
who is undoubtedly driven to insanity. Hers is real insanity whereas Hamlet´s has a
method. The extreme sadness for her father´s death and Hamlet´s ill-treatment and
amorous rejection makes her lose the grip on reality. Her songs display a curious
blending of innocence and sexuality, sense and nonsense.