further be made out for the view that part of Hamlet's courtship of Ophelia originated not so much in direct attraction for her as in a half-conscious desire to play her off against his mother, just as a disappointed and piqued lover is so often thrown into the arms of a more willing rival. When in the play scene he replies to his mother's request to sit by her with the words, "No, good mother, here's metal more attractive," and proceeds to lie at Ophelia's feet, we seem to have a direct indication of this attitude, and his coarse familiarity and bandying of ambiguous jests with the woman he has recently so ruthlessly jilted are hardly intelligible unless we bear in mind that they were carried out under the heedful gaze of the Queen. It is as though Hamlet is unconsciously expressing to her the following thought: "You give yourself to other men whom you prefer to me. Let me assure you that I can dispense with your favours, and indeed prefer those of a different type of woman."
Now comes the father's death and the mother's second marriage. The long "repressed" desire to take his father's place in his mother's affection is stimulated to unconscious activity by the sight of some one usurping this place exactly as he himself had once longed to do. More, this someone was a member of the same family, so that the actual usurpation further resembled the imaginary one in being incestuous. Without his being at all aware of it these ancient desires are ringing in his mind, are once more struggling to find expression, and need such an expenditure of energy again to "repress" them that he is reduced to the deplorable mental state he himself so vividly depicts. Then comes the Ghost's announcement of the murder. Hamlet, having at the moment his mind filled with natural indignation at the news, answers with (Act I.-Sc. 5. 1. 29.),
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
Yhe momentous words follow revealing who was the guilty person, namely a relative who had committed the deed at the bidding of lust.[1] Hamlet's second guilty wish had thus also been realised by his uncle, namely to procure the fulfilment of the first–the replacement of his father–by a personal deed, in fact by murder.[2] The two recent events, the father's
- ↑ It is not maintained that this was by any means Claudius' whole motive, but it evidently was a powerful one, and the one that most impressed Hamlet.
- ↑ Such murderous thoughts, directed against rival members of the same family, are surprisingly common in children, though of course it is relatively rare that they come to expression. Some years ago, in
