Page:William Strunk Jr. - The Importance of The Ghost in Hamlet.djvu/12

474 obey him. It may be pointed out that he knows the circumstances of his murder, though he was asleep when it was committed. Though there would have been no propriety in making him omniscient and omnipotent, he is, so far as concerns his own aims, all-sufficient both in knowledge and in judgement. He may have no minute prophetic knowledge of the future, but he knows when intervention is necessary and when he may safely trust Hamlet to attain revenge without further admonition. So far as his words throw light upon the nature of Hamlet's task, upon Hamlet's character, upon the efficiency with which Hamlet performs his task, they have an authority, and must have been intended by Shakespeare to have an authority, which gives them precedence over all the other data afforded by the play. Like Hamlet, we may say, "It is an honest ghost," and "take the ghost's word for a thousand pound." The words and actions of the ghost in many cases furnish the test by which we may determine the truth or falsity of the indications afforded by the other charapters in the play.

One qualification must be made. In the attempt to attach significance to all that the ghost does and says, we must not overlook the requirements of dramatic structure. I would not argue for a hidden meaning in the circumstance that instead of appearing in Hamlet's bedchamber shortly after the murder, it waits