"
Reading this passage, can any one doubt that the ghost charges his late
wife with adultery, as the root of all his woes? It is true that,
obedient to the ghost's injunctions, as well as his own filial
instincts, Hamlet accuses his mother of no more than was patent to all
the world; but unless we suppose the ghost misinformed or mistaken, we
must accept this charge. And had Gertrude not yielded to the witchcraft
of Claudius' wit, Claudius would never have murdered Hamlet. Through her
his life was dishonoured, and his death violent and premature: unhuzled,
disappointed, unaneled, he woke to the air--not of his orchard-blossoms,
but of a prison-house, the lightest word of whose terrors would freeze
the blood of the listener. What few men can say, he could--that his love
to his wife had kept even step with the vow he made to her in marriage;
and his son says of him--
"so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly;"
and this was her return! Yet is it thus he charges his son concerning
her:
"But howsoever thou pursu'st this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.
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