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102 though not without its basis in certain beautiful traits of Hamlet’s nature, is utterly untrue. It is too kind to Hamlet on one side, and it is quite unjust to him on another. The ‘conscience’ theory at any rate leaves Hamlet a great nature which you can admire and even revere. But for the ‘sentimental’ Hamlet you can feel only pity not unmingled with contempt. Whatever else he is, he is no hero.

But consider the text. This shrinking, flower-like youth—how could he possibly have done what we see Hamlet do? What likeness to him is there in the Hamlet who, summoned by the Ghost, bursts from his terrified friends with the cry:

the Hamlet who scarcely once speaks to the King without an insult, or to Polonius without a gibe; the Hamlet who storms at Ophelia and speaks daggers to his mother; the Hamlet who, hearing a cry behind the arras, whips out his sword in an instant and runs the eavesdropper through; the Hamlet who sends his ‘school-fellows’ to their death and never troubles his head about them more; the Hamlet who is the first man to board a pirate ship, and who fights with Laertes in the grave; the Hamlet of the catastrophe, an omnipotent fate, before whom all the court stands helpless, who, as the truth breaks upon him, rushes on the King, drives his foil right through his body, then seizes the poisoned cup and forces it violently between the wretched man’s lips, and in the throes of death has force and fire enough to wrest the cup from Horatio’s hand ('By heaven, I’ll have it!') lest he should drink and die? This man, the Hamlet of the play, is a heroic, terrible figure.