Hamlet | Summary, Plot, & Characters - Britannica

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”

1 of 3

2 of 3

3 of 3

As Shakespeare’s play opens, Hamlet is mourning his father, who has been killed, and lamenting the behavior of his mother, Gertrude, who married his uncle Claudius within a month of his father’s death. Claudius has ascended the throne of Denmark after his brother’s death. The ghost of his father appears to Hamlet and informs him that he was poisoned by Claudius. The ghost reveals:

Britannica Quiz Animals in Shakespeare Quiz

but know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father’s life Now wears his crown.

Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest play, with more than 4,000 lines and about 30,000 words.

The ghost commands Hamlet to avenge his death: “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” Though instantly galvanized by the ghost’s command, Hamlet decides on further reflection to seek evidence in corroboration of the ghostly visitation, since, he knows, the Devil can assume a pleasing shape and can easily mislead a person whose mind is perturbed by intense grief. Hamlet adopts a guise of melancholic and mad behavior as a way of deceiving Claudius and others at court—a guise made all the easier by the fact that Hamlet is genuinely melancholic.

Hamlet’s dearest friend, Horatio, agrees that Claudius has unambiguously confirmed his guilt. Driven by a guilty conscience, Claudius attempts to ascertain the cause of Hamlet’s odd behavior by hiring Hamlet’s onetime friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on him. Hamlet quickly sees through the scheme and begins to act the part of a madman in front of them. To the pompous old courtier Polonius, it appears that Hamlet is lovesick over Polonius’s daughter Ophelia. Despite Ophelia’s loyalty to him, Hamlet thinks that she, like everyone else, is turning against him; he also feigns madness with her and treats her cruelly as if she were representative, like his own mother, of her “treacherous” sex. He rants at Ophelia:

If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go: farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.