why she obeyed Claudius and allowed the death of a loving husband whom she loved. The little that we can infer from the conversation of this sinister pair leads us to think that Hamlet would have wreaked a nobler and a far more terrible vengeance if he had let them live with their memories and their fears, guarding himself against their terror, but letting them realize that he knew and judged.
Poor Polonius, a ridiculous victim, despite his skeptical and time-serving courtly wit, does not know what the pother is all about, and persists in regarding Hamlet’s madness as an impossible amatory delusion.
Nor can we save the famous thoughts of Hamlet—not even that “To be or not to be” which, after all, amounts merely to this superficial commonplace: life is evil, and if we were sure that the other life is not worse, we would do well to commit suicide. What better can one say of his banal reflections in the cemetery—the matter of men’s bodies is but dust, and may return to foul places and to base uses—and his easy, vulgar invective against the falseness of woman?
Never has any rereading been for me so sad as this—appropriate in its very sadness to the natural melancholy of a commemoration. For me today not only is Shakespeare dead, but in my spirit his restless son has died also.
