62 HAMLET.

he followed it to a quiet place, and there the ghost told him that what
he had suspected was true. The wicked Claudius had indeed killed his
good brother the King, by dropping poison into his ear as he slept in
his orchard in the afternoon.

“ And you,” said the ghost, “must avenge this cruel murder—on
my wicked brother. But do nothing against the Queen—for I have
loved her, and she is thy mother. Remember me.”

Then seeing the morning approach, the ghost vanished.

‘Now,’ said Hamlet, ‘ there is nothing left but revenge. Remember
thee—I will remember nothing else—books, pleasure, youth—let all go—
and your commands alone live in my brain.”

So when his friends came back he made them swear to keep the
secret of the ghost, and then went in from the battlements, now grey
with mingled dawn and moonlight, to think how he might best avenge
his murdered father.

The shock of seeing and hearing his father’s ghost made him feel
almost mad, and for fear that his uncle might notice that he was not
himself, he determined to hide his mad longing for revenge under a
pretended madness in other matters.

And when he met Ophelia, who loved him—and to whom he had
given gifts, and letters, and many loving words—he behaved so wildly
to her, that she could not but think him mad. For she loved him so
that she could not believe he would be so cruel as this, unless he were
quite mad. So she told her father, and shewed him a pretty letter
from Hamlet. And in the letter was much folly, and this pretty verse—

“ Doubt that the stars are fire ;
Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar ;
But never doubt I love.”

 

And from that time everyone believed that the cause of Hamlet’s sup-
posed madness was love.

Poor Hamlet was very unhappy. He longed to obey his father’s
ghost—and yet he was too gentle and kindly to wish to kill another —
man, even his father’s murderer. And sometimes he wondered whether,
after all, the ghost spoke truly.

Just at this time some actors came to the Court, and Hamlet