did<\/em> in fact lead to the destruction of the Danish royal family, the conquest of Denmark by Norway, and the death of Hamlet himself).<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the ghost first appears to Hamlet, the prince addresses it in terms that expressly allow the possibility that it might be demonic:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn\u2019d,\u00a0<\/span>
\nBring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,<\/span>
\nBe thy intents wicked or charitable,\u00a0<\/span>
\nThou com\u2019st in such a questionable shape\u00a0<\/span>
\nThat I will speak to thee. \u00a0(1.4.669-673)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
And his friend Horatio\u2019s warning against following the ghost \u2014 against literally following it but perhaps also against doing so metaphorically \u2014 is not only prudent but, in a sense, prophetic:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,\u00a0<\/span>
\nOr to the dreadful summit of the cliff\u00a0<\/span>
\nThat beetles o\u2019er his base into the sea,\u00a0<\/span>
\nAnd there assume some other, horrible form<\/span>
\nWhich might deprive your sovereignty of reason\u00a0<\/span>
\nAnd draw you into madness? \u00a0(1.4.702-707)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ghost explicitly identifies itself as a denizen of Hell, where it dwells amidst\u00a0\u201csulph\u2019rous and tormenting flames\u201d (1.5.737).<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI am thy father\u2019s spirit,\u201d it says (although the truth of its claim is impossible to verify and perhaps utterly false),<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Doom\u2019d for a certain term to walk the night,\u00a0<\/span>
\nAnd for the day confin\u2019d to fast in fires,\u00a0<\/span>
\nTill the foul crimes done in my days of nature\u00a0<\/span>
\nAre burnt and purg\u2019d away. But that I am forbid\u00a0<\/span>
\nTo tell the secrets of my prison house,\u00a0<\/span>
\nI could a tale unfold whose lightest word\u00a0<\/span>
\nWould harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,\u00a0<\/span>
\nMake thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,\u00a0<\/span>
\nThy knotted and combined locks to part,\u00a0<\/span>
\nAnd each particular hair to stand on end<\/span>
\nLike quills upon the fretful porcupine.\u00a0<\/span>
\nBut this eternal blazon must not be\u00a0<\/span>
\nTo ears of flesh and blood. \u00a0(1.5.745-758)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Considerably later in the play, when Hamlet conceives the plan of confirming or disconfirming Claudius\u2019s responsibility for the death of the late king by means of a small play within the play, he is still aware of the fact that the ghost whose demand for vengeance has been guiding his course since the beginning of the story may indeed be an evil deceiver:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The spirit that I have seen<\/span>
\n May be the devil: and the devil hath power<\/span>
\n To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps,<\/span>
\n Out of my weakness and my melancholy,<\/span>
\n As he is very potent with such spirits,<\/span>
\n Abuses me to damn me. I\u2019ll have grounds<\/span>
\n More relative than this. The play\u2019s the thing<\/span>
\n Wherein I\u2019ll catch the conscience of the King. \u00a0(2.2.627-634)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hamlet is confident that, if Claudius does turn out to have murdered his father, the ghost will be proven not to be diabolical. \u00a0But his confidence is misplaced. \u00a0As the audience knows and as Hamlet will soon verify, Claudius is indeed guilty of fratricidal murder. \u00a0But that by no means demonstrates that the ghost is benevolent or good. \u00a0Might the ghost not be baiting its hook with enough truth to catch the prince and destroy him?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
If Hamlet had enjoyed the privilege of reading Shakespeare\u2019s tragic play\u00a0Macbeth<\/em>, he would have encountered the warning given by Banquo to his friend Macbeth after their enounter with the three prophetic \u201cweird sisters\u201d out on the heath:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,<\/span>
\n The instruments of darkness tell us truths,<\/span>
\n Win us with honest trifles, to betray \u2019s<\/span>
\n In deepest consequence. \u00a0<\/span>(Macbeth<\/em> 1.3.135-138)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
And he would have seen, in that story, how their prophecy of Macbeth\u2019s rise to the rule of Scotland led to Macbeth\u2019s assassination of a virtuous king and the murder of his faithful servants, Macbeth\u2019s treacherous murder of Banquo, Macbeth\u2019s extermination of Macduff\u2019s innocent wife and children, the insanity and likely suicide of Lady Macbeth (who bears an equal share of guilt for the whole affair), and, ultimately, the death of Macbeth himself. \u00a0Yes, he was briefly king of Scotland. \u00a0In the end, though, his ambition, urged on by plainly demonic forces, destroyed him, many others, and everything he cared for.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 In my immediately previous post on Hamlet, I began to discuss the late Eugene England\u2019s suggestion that the ghost who appears on the ramparts of the castle of Elsinore and who urges Prince Hamlet on to revenge might well have been a satanic counterfeit. \u00a0The ghost might have intended Hamlet\u2019s ruin and that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Helsingor,](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2019\/08\/800px-Helsingor_Kronborg.jpg\")
<\/a>