Seeking a temporary respite from both the plastic horror shows on display and the deeper ones now churning in the cauldron of the republic, I picked up a copy of Hamlet. I’m not sure why — it just called to me as I was looking for something to train my eyeballs away from these confounded screens. This is probably the third or fourth time I’ve read the play, but I didn’t remember the prominent role of the ghost until I started through it again.
ACT I: The ghost of Denmark’s dead king, Hamlet’s father, walks past the night watch outside the castle Elsinore. This it isn’t the first time; it happened twice before. Seeing it again, those who witness this eerie sight let Hamlet know about it, and that night he joins their watch. Sure enough, the ghost appears again, this time motioning for Hamlet to follow, which he does.
King Hamlet’s ghost imparts to the prince a terrible piece of intelligence: He did not die of a snakebite in the royal orchard, as had been told throughout Denmark. Instead, he died when Hamlet’s uncle — now risen to the throne in the old king’s place — poured poison in his ear as he slept, curdling the blood in his veins and killing him horribly.
It’s a great start to a story, isn’t it? Especially when we add that the murderous new king and the old queen — this would be Hamlet’s mother — wasted no time in getting married and thus consolidating the power needed to cover for the crime. Isn’t that just richly evil? Hamlet evidently thinks so.
But what really strikes me now, as days grow short and the northern autumn takes a decided turn toward winter gloom, is the way Shakespeare’s classic play implies that the truth will out — even, if it must, by supernatural means. A ghost appears, bearing unsettling facts. And upon this hearing turns the destiny of the kingdom.
In the play, of course, it comes to Hamlet. I’d like to invite that on today’s political stage it could be any of us.
Though not to my knowledge often compared in this way, we see something similar in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Here again, there’s trouble in the realm, but in this case, interestingly, the action is driven not by the uncovering of concealed human crimes but instead by a circumstance where lawful edicts contravene the higher laws of love and nature. In the comedy, the very elements — the fairies and their kingdom — are in a parallel upheaval, and the lovers, fleeing to the woods from Athens and its laws, have numinous encounters there that ultimately right both realms. And it’s easy for people today to say of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “Oh, that’s just a love story.” We might forget, but Shakespeare’s contemporaries would not, that in powerful families such marriages are inseparable from statecraft. This is serious business.
So: encounters with fairies, encounters with ghosts. Shakespeare seems to suggest that the fate of nations depends on something deeper than the day-to-day affairs that so often monopolize our attentions. Nature has a say. Who has the power, who has the right? Who is in the right? In A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare asks: What happens when a secular law runs contrary to a higher good? In Hamlet, we are invited to consider how long can rule by criminal deception last, and what our knowledge of this requires of us.
To this last question, Hamlet’s soliloquy provides one answer, or at least outlines the scope of the inquiry. Starting with the words “To be or not to be…” this is probably one of the most famous passages ever written in English. However, immediately after asking his famous question, Hamlet offers a telling follow-up. Here are the first few lines, with emphasis added:
To be, or not to be — that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.
Indeed: “Whether ’tis nobler…” Now THAT is the question! What is the nobler course of action? The fact that these words so closely follow the more often quoted line tells us that for Shakespeare — or at least for the character Hamlet — these two questions run parallel: For the prince, “to be” is to be noble. Hamlet sees that the outcomes of his actions and in turn his noble title depend not merely on his birthright but upon the nobility of his character. His lineage may call him into service, but he’s basically on his own. Adding weight to this, as a royal, well he knows that his personal destiny is bound up with that of his nation. The consequences of the painful lancing of a tumescent boil upon the monarchy have to be weighed against the septic risks of its continued festering. Further, if we follow what he goes on to express in his soliloquy, Hamlet grasps implicitly that to fail to follow the nobler path is to risk losing not merely his position or even his life, but something deeper in himself. This is what makes Hamlet’s dilemma a “to-be-or-not-to-be,” existential problem.
Are we in any different position, today? History now bends around us, and the shape it ultimately takes will be our own.
The really tragic thing about tragedies is that the choices they present invariably lead to tragic consequences, regardless. All Hamlet’s choices are bad. After all, he could simply go along with the crime, become complicit in the public deception, continue his comfortable life in the royal court, most likely win the hand of his beloved Ophelia and in due time ascend to the throne. And all he need do to have all of this — wealth, power, privilege and the hand of his beloved — is to live a lie. This he will not do. The other option is, as we soon observe in the play, one hell of a bloody mess. Perhaps other courses of action are conceivable: maybe the prince could flee the kingdom, go into hiding, or live under an assumed identity. But what would these say about Hamlet’s sense of duty to crown and country? Such options aren’t even considered. Including them nonetheless, these are the main categories of response: stand and take it, stand and fight, or try to run away. Basically, all of his options are tragic.
Well, my friends, sorry to tell you, but it’s Hamlet time for all of us.
Consequently, “whether ’tis nobler” should be the question on everyone’s mind.
Stand and take it, stand for something better, or try to hide or run away. None of these will be easy going forward. Some, regrettably, may skip over both Hamlet’s ferocious introspection and testing of his own knowledge, and, fortified with unearned certainty, compound the crimes of state with miserable ones of their own. This is far from noble. Most of us, unlike Hamlet, will dismiss any bearers of unwanted intelligence, dress ourselves in whatever brand of sponsored deception suits our styles, and hold to such comforts as can yet be found in life. This is understandable: It’s easier. Once one starts to grasp the scale and scope of the criminality and deceit that brought the nation to this pass, it’s really too much. And I mean that literally: it is too much. Look at Hamlet: he goes a bit nuts. But while the risks to our minds are real, there may be greater dangers ahead. Faced with this presentiment, nearly all will choose to retreat into various forms of refuge, seeking distractions, groupthink, phony affiliations, addictions, or a pitiful kind of hope predicated on ignorance of facts and shortness of memory. Whatever assuages our distress or banishes the spirits that come bearing unwelcome truths will be called upon.
Be forewarned, however: my re-reading of Hamlet was intended to be such a distraction, and look where I landed. The escape I sought in the 400-year-old text turned into a visitation that brought me face to face with present circumstances, and now it haunts me.
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