The Gospel according to Shakespeare

Chapter 1: Amen for the Fall of a Sparrow

9 C h a p t e r 1 Amen for the Fall of a Sparrow There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. v What happens to hamlet during the voyage that should bring him from Denmark to england but then leads him home? What—i ask specifically—happens to him on a psychological, mental, and moral level? What happens to his inner self, his way of thinking? Because, more or less, we know what happens materially. his uncle Claudius— brother of hamlet’s father, usurper of his throne and too-soon husband to his widow Gertrude, hamlet’s mother—is not convinced that hamlet ’s seeming madness is, as his courtier polonius claims, caused by his rejected love for ophelia. Claudius has watched a play, directed by the prince himself, in which the murder of hamlet’s father—which had been denounced to his son by the father’s ghost as having been the work of Claudius—is performed with altered names and a Viennese setting. he is perturbed and frightened by this. he therefore thinks, immediately , of sending his nephew to england, so as to rid himself of him. hamlet then accidentally kills polonius, who is spying behind a curtain on his conversation with his mother; Claudius understands that, had he 10 The Gospel according to Shakespeare been in that hiding place himself, hamlet would have stabbed him mercilessly. this murder gives Claudius one more reason to get rid of hamlet—a political one, he holds, for people will start murmuring against hamlet for the death of a person who was much loved. hamlet knows well, and says so to his mother Gertrude at the end of their encounter , that the voyage to england is a trap.this is indeed the case. at the end of his brief audience with hamlet, as the latter heads towards the ship escorted by guards and accompanied by rosencrantz and Guildenstern , the king reveals his plan to us.“Like the hectic in my blood he [hamlet] rages,” and england must cure Claudius. england is in debt towards Denmark. it therefore may not “coldly set / our sovereign process , which imports at full, / By letters congruing to that effect, / the present death of hamlet.” england will have to kill hamlet. the prince leaves. But while the king and queen witness the outburst of madness in ophelia, and her brother Laertes returns, full of vengeful thoughts towards Claudius (whom he considers responsible for protecting his father’s murderer, hamlet), some sailors arrive who bring to hamlet’s faithful friend horatio a letter from the prince. in it, hamlet asks horatio to see that the sailors are received by the king, to whom they will deliver a message.he also entreats his friend to join him as soon as possible (the sailors will lead horatio to hamlet), because he has “words to speak in thine ear” that, even though “too light for the bore of the matter,” “will make thee dumb.” he then explains what has happened: ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour, and in the grapple i boarded them. on the instant they got clear of our ship, so i alone became their prisoner. they have dealt with me like thieves of mercy; but they knew what they did: i am to do a turn for them. . . . rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for england ; of them i have much to tell thee. (4.6.14–28) as will in fact be revealed, this message relates only half the story. Meanwhile, the sailors carry hamlet’s letter to Claudius, who is con- Amen for the Fall of a Sparrow 11 versing with the incensed Laertes.the letter simply says that the prince has returned to Denmark—“naked” and “alone”—and asks for an audience for the following day. he will reveal to the king then “th’occasions of my sudden and more strange return.” this does not actually happen. instead, much later, after ophelia’s funeral and burial, hamlet tells horatio the other half of the story. he confirms the “sea-fight” of which he had written in the letter (“and what to this was sequent / thou knowest already,” he adds, though there is no trace in the play of what actually happened after the encounter with...