The court and Hamlet's mourning

Scene summary

In the Throne Room, Claudius, brother of the dead king and now on the throne, makes his first address. He says that, although his brother’s death is still fresh in memory, he took the widow, Gertrude, as his wife, and thanks the councilors who supported the marriage. He reports that young Fortinbras, believing the kingdom would fall apart with the king’s death, demands back the lands his father lost, and sends Cornelius and Voltimand with letters to the king of Norway, Fortinbras’s sick uncle, so that he may restrain him. Then Laertes asks leave to return to France, Polonius, his father, confirms that he consented, and the king grants it.

Claudius asks Hamlet why the clouds still hang over him, and Gertrude asks him to lay aside his mourning, reminding him that everything that lives must die. Hamlet answers that he does not know “seeming”: a black cloak, sighs and tears anyone can feign, and he has within himself what exceeds appearance. Claudius says that prolonged mourning is a stubbornness unworthy of a man, declares Hamlet the closest to the throne, and asks that he stay at Elsinore instead of returning to the university at Wittenberg. The queen asks the same, and Hamlet yields only to her: “I shall obey you, madam, as best I can.” The court leaves.

Alone, Hamlet wishes that his flesh would melt into dew, or that God had not forbidden suicide. He sees the world as an abandoned garden and laments that his mother, who clung to her husband, married his brother in less than two months. He compares his father, an excellent king, to a sun god, and Claudius to a satyr, and concludes that he must hold his tongue. Horatio, Marcellus and Bernardo enter. Horatio says he came to the king’s funeral, and Hamlet answers that he came to the wedding, for the funeral’s roast meats served cold at the wedding tables. Horatio tells that Marcellus and Bernardo saw, two nights in a row, an armed figure, the same as the dead king, and that on the third night he saw it himself. Hamlet questions him about the armor, the face and the grizzled beard, decides to stand guard at night and asks for secrecy.