Quote 7
GHOST
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.
(1.5.91)
We're going to let super famous literary critic Stephen Greenblatt handle this one: in Hamlet in Purgatory, he argues that the Ghost tells us about the complexities of the 16th century debate about Purgatory. Praying for Purgatorial spirits, argues Greenblatt, was a important way for the living to remember and express grief for lost love ones, so, when the Anglican Church officially rejected the doctrine of Purgatory in 1563, it eliminated an important social and psychological function for the living—kind of like Claudius ordering Hamlet to stop grieving.
Quote 8
GHOST
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts—
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage, and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine.
But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So, lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage.
(1.5.49-64)
Like Hamlet, the ghost dwells on Gertrude's "seeming" virtue. But is the ghost saying Gertrude cheated on him when they were married? Or, does the ghost merely see her remarriage as a betrayal? We get stuck on the meaning of "adulterate," which, in Elizabethan England could refer to a cheating spouse or any sexual sin in general (like incest). Either way, the ghost implies that Gertrude's remarriage retroactively makes their marriage into a sham.
O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damnèd incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.
(1.5.87-95)
Like Hamlet, the ghost focuses on Gertrude's sexuality as he urges Hamlet not to let "Denmark be / A couch for luxury and damned incest." Translation: kill Claudius so Gertrude can't sleep with him anymore. Oh, but leave her out of it. (Yeah, right.)