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Shakespeare
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King Hamlet was the king of Denmark. His wife,
Gertrude, was the queen of Denmark. The king and his wife had a son whose name was Prince
Hamlet.
Prince Hamlet was very sad when his father died but he became more shocked and sadder when, after two months of his father's death, his mother, married his uncle,
Claudius, who was not as good and as respectable as king Hamlet.
His mother and his uncle, Claudius, tried to please the young prince and to bring him back to his normal way of life, but they didn't succeed. He insisted wearing a black suit, as mourning for his father's death. Prince Hamlet had suspicious that his father had been poisoned by Claudius in murder plant.
One night, Hamlet and his friend,
Horatio, were talking to one of the guards when exactly at midnight a ghost appeared. The ghost looked at Hamlet as it were desiring to talk to him. Hamlet gained some courage and called at the ghost saying
" King, father, royal Dane, O, answer me!"
After they reached a place where they couldn't be seen and hear, the ghost told Hamlet that he had been poisoned by both his wife, Gertrude, and his own brother, Claudius. Then it asked Hamlet to take revenge and kill Claudius. As for Gertrude, the ghost said to hamlet "Don't kill your mother. Let her suffer all her life …." Hamlet promised the ghost to take revenge and then the ghost disappeared.
Hamlet didn’t want the king and the queen to discover that he knew about the murder of his father. He pretended that he was mad, and acted as a madman. The king and the queen were both deceived by Hamlet's behaviour, and thought that his madness was caused by his love to
Ophelia, the daughter of
Polonius, the king's chief advisor.
He had sent her letters and precious gifts and she made him believe that she loved him.
Hamlet wanted to kill the king but there were a lot of reasons that make him confused and indecisive. While he was in this state of confusion there came to the court a group of actors who Hamlet had known before his father's death. Hamlet welcomed them and requested to play something like the murder of his father. Hamlet invited the King and the queen to see this play. Hamlet sat near the king to observe his looks. Soon afterwards the queen and the king realized that the play was about the murder of Hamlet's father. In the middle of the play, Claudius pretended that he was sick and left the theatre.
After the play was over, the king advised the queen to talk to Hamlet and to tell him that he should stop offending his uncle, the king. The king also instructed Polonius to stand behind a curtain to hear everything the queen said to Hamlet. The queen told Hamlet that he had given great offence to his father, Claudius. Hamlet replied" Mother, you have much offended my father by calling this husband of yours "my father". He also added, "This man who you refer to as my father is no better than the murderer of my true father". The queen was very angry and wanted to go to and ask the king or Polonius to come and talk to Hamlet, but Hamlet wouldn't let her go. The queen was frightened and shouted "Help! Help! " . A voice was heard behind the curtain, and thinking that it was the king, Hamlet drew his sword and stabbed at the place where the voice came. But when he pulled the body from behind the curtain, it wasn't the king but Polonius. After few minutes and while he was arguing with the queen the ghost of his father entered the room just to remind him of the revenge he had promised, which Hamlet seemed to have forgotten. It then vanished.
Ophelia, Polonius's daughter, was shocked to hear that her father was killed by her lover. Gradually she fell into melancholy and at times she seemed to be mad. She soon fell sick and she was died.
Laertes, Polonius's son, was very angry for the death of his father and his sister, contrived together with Claudius destruction for Hamlet. He challenged Hamlet to a friendly trial of skill at fencing. Hamlet accepts the challenge and a date was fixed for the match. At this match all court was present, and Laertes by direction of Claudius, prepared a poisoned sword. At the beginning of the match, Hamlet appeared to be more skillful than Laetres, but suddenly Laetres made a deadly thrust at Hamlet with his poisoned sword, and gave him a deadly blow. As the match grew fiercer, Hamlet got hold of the sword of Laertes and stabbed Laetres with his own poisoned sword.
At the moment the queen shouted in pain that she was poisoned by drinking out of a bowl which the king had prepared for Hamlet and he had forgotten to warn the queen of that bowl.
In a few seconds the poisoned queen was dead. Hamlet ordered the doors to be shut. Laertes was beginning to get weaker because of his wound and asking Hamlet to forgive him and that his sword was poisoned and that the king was responsible for everything and then he died. On hearing that, Hamlet turned to Claudius and thrust the poisoned point of his sword to his heart. After that Hamlet turned to his friend, Horatio, and asked him to tell his story to the whole world, and soon died.
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