But, as I have said, he does not know all
the disadvantages of one who, having forsaken the world, has yet
business therein to which he would persuade; he does not know how hard
it is for a man to give credence to a ghost; how thoroughly he is
justified in delay, and the demand for more perfect proof. He does not
know what good reasons his son has had for uncertainty, or how much
natural and righteous doubt has had to do with what he takes for the
blunting of his purpose. Neither does he know how much more tender his
son's conscience is than his own, or how necessary it is to him to be
sure before he acts. As little perhaps does he understand how hateful to
Hamlet is the task laid upon him--the killing of one wretched villain in
the midst of a corrupt and contemptible court, one of a world of whose
women his mother may be the type!
Whatever the main object of the ghost's appearance, he has spoken but a
few words concerning the matter between him and Hamlet, when he turns
abruptly from it to plead with his son for his wife. The ghost sees and
mistakes the terror of her looks; imagines that, either from some
feeling of his presence, or from the power of Hamlet's words, her
conscience is thoroughly roused, and that her vision, her conception of
the facts, is now more than she can bear.
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