Hamlet is the tragedy of the prince of Denmark who receives from his father's ghost the order to avenge the murder: according to the specter, the king was poisoned by his own brother, Claudius, who took the crown and the widow, Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. The play follows what the prince does and fails to do with this order.
In Act I, the sentinels and his friend Horatio see the ghost on the walls of Elsinore, and Hamlet, who studied in Wittenberg, hears from his father that he died of poison poured into his ear, in the orchard. Hamlet promises to fulfill his father's commandment and warns his friends that he may take up an eccentric conduct. In Act II, Polonius concludes that the prince has gone mad for love of Ophelia, and Hamlet, after seeing an actor weep for Hecuba, decides to test the king with a play.
In Act III, The Mousetrap stages the poisoning, and Claudius rises and orders the lights. Hamlet finds the king praying and does not kill him, and in the queen's chamber he thrusts through a curtain, thinking it is the king, and kills Polonius. In Act IV, Claudius sends Hamlet to England with letters that call for his death; he returns after being captured by pirates. Ophelia goes mad and drowns, and Laertes, her brother, accepts the duel planned by the king and proposes to anoint the sword with poison.
In Act V, in the graveyard, Hamlet holds Yorick's skull and fights Laertes in Ophelia's grave. In the duel, Gertrude drinks the poisoned wine, Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned sword and is then wounded by the same blade, and Hamlet kills Claudius. Hamlet asks Horatio to tell his story and dies, and the Norwegian Fortinbras arrives and finds the royal family dead.