The Death of Hamlet's Father

When a poet takes an old theme from which to create a work of art it is always interesting, and often instructive, to note the respects in which he changes elements in the story. Much of what we glean of Shakespeare's personality is derived from such studies, the direct biographical details being so sparse. The difference in the accounts given in Hamlet of the way the King had died from that given in the original story is so striking that it would seem worth while to look closer at the matter.

The most obvious difference is that in the Saxo-Belleforest saga the murder is a public one, with Shakespeare a secret one. We do not know, however, who made this change, since an English play called Hamlet, thought to be written by Kyd, was extant some twelve years before Shakespeare wrote his; and he doubtless used it as well as the Belleforest version. That play no longer exists except in a much later and much distorted German version, but a Ghost probably appeared in it, and one can hardly imagine any other function for him than to disclose a secret murder. There is reason to suppose that Shakespeare may himself have had a hand in the Kyd play, but at all events he made the best possible use of the alteration.

In the old saga Claudius (there called Feng) draws his sword on his brother the King (Horvendil)1 at a banquet and slays him 'with many wounds'. He explains to the assembled nobles that he has done this to protect his sister-in-law (Geruth) from ill-treatment and imminent peril of her life at the hands of her husband—a pretext evidently a reflection of the infant's sadistic conception of coitus. Incidentally, in the Saxo saga (though not with Belleforest), there had here been no previous adultery with the Queen, so that Feng is the sole villain, and Amleth, unlike Hamlet, unhesitatingly kills him and reigns in his stead as soon as he can overcome the external obstacles. In Hamlet, as is well known, the plot is intensified by the previous incestuous adultery of