Ostensibly the plot of Hamlet is simple. A son is called upon to
kill his father's murderer. The son was wellnigh the perfect
pattern of manhood, rich in the qualities which make for
excellence in the full life of one who in himself is scholar,
soldier and courtier. The murdered father, moreover, was
dearly loved, one of so much worthiness that the earth seldom
has produced his like. The murderer was not only wicked with
the common wickedness of murderers; the man he murdered
was his brother, and he took to himself not only the murdered
man's crown but also his widow. The situation appears even
extravagantly simple. The moment the son hears of the murder,
he resolves that with 'wings as swift as meditation, or the
thoughts of love' he will sweep to his revenge. There appears
to be no reason on earth why he should not, and could not, do
it in the next moment. Yet the whole stuff of the play is that he
did not and could not do so. He fails until in the end by an
unpremeditated stroke, he kills his uncle by his own last human
act. Why then did he fail? What is the inevitability of his doom?

He fails because he is himself, Hamlet, and because the
particular circumstance which he is called upon to encounter
proves itself to be precisely of the sort which a man such as he
cannot surmount. It is obvious that even in this statement of
the situation there are elements belonging to the mysteries of
life which the drama leaves in their own inscrutable darkness.
Why, for instance, was Harnlet the sort of man he was, and
why did he chance to be born with such an uncle and in times
so very much out of joint? These are questions for all who seek
a complete metaphysic; but they are neither raised nor answered
in the play: they are data, even as in the Iphigenia of Euripides

-83-