Hamlet was the only son of the King of Denmark. He loved his father and mother dearly--and was happy in the love of a sweet lady named Ophelia. Her father, Polonius, was the King's Chamberlain.  
While Hamlet was away studying at Wittenberg, his father died. Young Hamlet hastened home in great grief to hear that a serpent had stung the King, and that he was dead. The young Prince had loved his father so tenderly that you may judge what he felt when he found that the Queen, before yet the King had been laid in the ground a month, had determined to marry again--and to marry the dead King's brother.
 
Hamlet refused to put off mourning for the wedding.
 
“It is not only the black I wear on my body,” he said, “that proves my loss. I wear mourning in my heart for my dead father. His son at least remembers him, and grieves still.”
 
Then said Claudius the King's brother, “This grief is unreasonable. Of course you must sorrow at the loss of your father, but--”
 
“Ah,” said Hamlet, bitterly, “I cannot in one little month forget those I love.”
 
With that the Queen and Claudius left him, to make merry over their wedding, forgetting the poor good King who had been so kind to them both.
 
And Hamlet, left alone, began to wonder and to question as to what he ought to do. For he could not believe the story about the snake-bite. It seemed to him all too plain that the wicked Claudius had killed the King, so as to get the crown and marry the Queen. Yet he had no proof, and could not accuse Claudius.
 
And while he was thus thinking came Horatio, a fellow student of his, from Wittenberg.
 
“What brought you here?” asked Hamlet, when he had greeted his friend kindly.
 
“I came, my lord, to see your father's funeral.”
 
“I think it was to see my mother's wedding,” said Hamlet, bitterly. “My father! We shall not look upon his like again.”
 
“My lord,” answered Horatio, “I think I saw him yesternight.”
 
Please keep photo with html Then, while Hamlet listened in surprise, Horatio told how he, with two gentlemen of the guard, had seen the King's ghost on the battlements. Hamlet went that night, and true enough, at midnight, the ghost of the King, in the armor he had been wont to wear, appeared on the battlements in the chill moonlight. Hamlet was a brave youth. Instead of running away from the ghost he spoke to it--and when it beckoned him 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 your 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 on 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 gray 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 as cruel as this, unless he were quite mad. So she told her father, and showed 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 supposed 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 ordered them to perform a certain play before the King and Queen. Now, this play was the story of a man who had been murdered in his garden by a near relation, who afterwards married the dead man's wife.
 
You may imagine the feelings of the wicked King, as he sat on his throne, with the Queen beside him and all his Court around, and saw, acted on the stage, the very wickedness that he had himself done. And when, in the play, the wicked relation poured poison into the ear of the sleeping man, the wicked Claudius suddenly rose, and staggered from the room--the Queen and others following.
 
Then said Hamlet to his friends--
 
“Now I am sure the ghost spoke true. For if Claudius had not done this murder, he ............