Prince Hamlet’s student friend,
Horatio, goes to the battlements of Denmark’s Elsinore castle late at night to
meet the guards. They tell him about a ghost they have seen that resembles the
late king, Hamlet. It reappears and they decide to tell the prince. Hamlet’s
uncle, Claudius, having become king, has now married Hamlet’s widowed mother,
Gertrude.
In the court, after envoys are sent to Norway, the
prince is dissuaded from returning to university. Hamlet still mourns his
father’s death and hearing of the ghost from Horatio he determines to see it
for himself. Laertes, son of the courtier, Polonius, departs for France,
warning his sister, Ophelia, against thinking too much of Hamlet’s attentions.
The ghost appears to Hamlet and tells him that he was
murdered by Claudius. The prince swears vengeance and his friends are
sworn to secrecy as Hamlet decides to feign madness while he tests the truth of
the ghost’s allegations. He rejects Ophelia, as Claudius and Polonius spy on
him seeking to find a reason for his sudden strange behaviour. Guildenstern and
Rosencrantz, former student friends of Hamlet, are summoned by
Claudius and their arrival coincides with that of a group of travelling actors.
The prince knows these players well and they rehearse together before arranging
to present Hamlet’s choice of play before the king and queen, which will
include scenes close to the circumstances of the old king’s death. At the
performance Hamlet watches closely as Claudius is provoked into interrupting
the play and storming out, resolving to send the prince away to
England. Hamlet is summoned by his distressed mother and, on the way he spares
Claudius whom he sees kneeling, attempting to pray. To kill him while he is
praying would send his soul to heaven rather than to the hell he deserves.
Polonius hides in Gertrude’s room to listen to the
conversation, but Hamlet detects movement as he upbraids his mother. He stabs
the concealing tapestry and so kills the old man. The ghost reappears, warning
his son not to delay revenge, nor to upset his mother.
As the army of Norway’s King Fortinbras crosses
Denmark to attack Poland, Hamlet is sent to England, ostensibly as an
ambassador, but he discovers Claudius’s plan to have him killed. Outwitting
this plot Hamlet returns alone, sending Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their
deaths in his stead. During Hamlet’s absence Ophelia goes mad as a result of
her father’s death and she is drowned.
Hamlet returns and meets Horatio in the graveyard.
With the arrival of Ophelia’s funeral Hamlet confronts Laertes who, after
attempting a revolt against Claudius, has taken his father’s place at the
court. A duel is arranged between Hamlet and Laertes at which Claudius has
plotted for Hamlet to die either on a poisoned rapier, or from poisoned wine. The
plans go wrong and both Laertes and Hamlet are wounded, while Gertrude
unwittingly drinks from the poisoned cup. Hamlet, in his death throes, kills
Claudius, and Horatio is left to explain the truth to the new king, Fortinbras,
who returns, victorious, from the Polish wars.
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