Hamlet decrypted

This summer, I saw Hamlet played on the Boston Common by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. It was a memorable moment indeed, with great actors, and a very creative direction, that managed to be very original without sacrificing the least either the letter or the spirit of the text.

But after seeing the play, I could not repress a strong feeling that the whole story was but a huge lie hiding an unsavory truth. Here's my take on the real events behind Hamlet, much more serious than the version by Gotlib & Alexis. Call me paranoïd, I am much less so than Hamlet is alleged to have been...

Think of it, norwegian general Fortinbras comes back to Denmark after a campaign of looting and enslavement in Poland. From what he just did, we know that the guy obviously has no respect whatsoever for the life and property of innocent people. The same day, all the royal family is found dead; Fortinbras is proclaimed king, and spreads a horrific story about the previous dynasty, based on elements unheard so far. Doesn't that seem suspect to you?

The royal family was mourning, but as far as we can tell from hard evidence, it was an amicable albeit fate-stricken family. The old king Hamlet died in his sleep a few months ago. His widow, Queen Gertrude, needs a strong man to help her take his succession; she promptly marries Claudius, the brother of her deceased husband, consolidating the dynasty. Young Hamlet, son of Hamlet and Gertrude, is the designated heir to the throne, beloved by his mother and uncle. So far, so good.

Now, Polonius the father of Hamlet's fiance Ophelia dies in an unclear incident: he is found hiding in the Queen's private apartment, and is killed by Hamlet, who takes him for an assassin -- and maybe Polonius was indeed a traitor and an assassin, in the hire of Fortinbras. Or maybe he was killed by an actual assassin who fled and not by Hamlet; Hamlet was never officially accused of having killed Polonius until after Fortinbras seized power. Soon after the incident, Fortinbras leaves Denmark in a hurry with his army -- he is probably as afraid of being caught as a conspirator as he is keen to find military glory to strenghten his intended bid for the throne. At the same time, Hamlet goes on a trip to Britain, in the hope of changing his taciturn mood as well as in service to Claudius.

Some time later, Hamlet comes back to Elsinore, ostensibly at the news of the untimely death of his sorrowful fiancee. Right afterwards, hereditary enemy Fortinbras arrives, his army enters the castle, and the next thing you know, the whole royal family is dead, as well as many friends and witnesses. It is likely that Fortinbras awaited for the royal family to be reunited all at the same place so as to murder them all at once; it would have been too risky to do his coup while some royal family members were away, and it was best to strike as soon as possible, while he was ready and they weren't.

To discharge Fortinbras from suspicion, what do we have? Wild allegations that members of the royal family had somehow killed each other, and that the last survivor and least guilty of them, young Hamlet, had declared Fortinbras his successor. It is of course very convenient to rely on alleged deeds and sayings of those who are dead and cannot dispute such claims; but in the absence of any trace of written document or of reliable witness, such claims are worth nothing in the mouth of the man most interested in seeing this whole family dead.

To back all his fantastic claims, in lieu of evidence, Fortinbras only has the testimony of a unique friend of the family, Horatio, who somehow survived the slaughter. Horatio is ostensibly encouraged by Fortinbras to spread his version of the story; most probably, he was spared his life by Fortinbras and bribed royally in exchange for his telling whatever Fortinbras wanted him to tell. Yet, Fortinbras is so lacking in material support for his official story that the only justification he has for Hamlet turning against his mother is the inconceivable apparition of old King Hamlet's Ghost accusing her; a couple of guards also claim having glimpsed said ghost, but they are in Fortinbras' pay just like Horatio is, and none of whom ever quite mentionned such an extraordinary story before they were on his pay.

Other friends of the Hamlet family are found to dead. The victims include Laertes, brother of Ophelia and close friend to the family, who was killed during the coup, probably because he was faithful to his liege. They also include those close friends to Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, officially sent to death by their own friend Hamlet with a letter by Claudius originally destined to doom Hamlet; a more probable explanation is that they wouldn't agree to take part in Fortinbras' Big Lie and say Hamlet had turned against his mother and uncle, therefore Fortinbras had them killed before they could reach Denmark and tell the truth.

It is clear that the official thesis for the death of the Hamlet family is based on spurious rumors told by interested parties who resort to spectacular lies in order to hide their complete lack of evidence. The bigger the lie, the easier it is believed; and their lie crucially depends on the instrumental intervention of a ghost. Though such story might have seemed plausible in a time when people were more superstitious, no one today could possibly believe this bogus story. The simplest and most likely explanation for such lies being spread is that they are a conscious attempt to legitimize Fortinbras's usurpation, by both rooting his power in continuity of the previous dynasty (by claiming Hamlet's blessing) and discrediting the morality of said dynasty (by alleging that its members murdered each other).

Fact is, we have no evidence of internal feud in the Hamlet family, and we have all the reasons to think the story is a lie. What we know for sure is that on that fateful day, the royal family that was alive and well in the morning before Fortinbras came in, was no more in the evening when he went out. We know for sure that Fortinbras wanted to avenge the death of his father and the hands of Hamlet's father. And yet we are to believe that the Hamlet family killed each other, and that Fortinbras just happened to be here with no special purpose and providentially restored justice, peace and order where there was chaos?

Usurpation through murder, backed by fairy tales. Par for the course for a new dynasty. Of course, victors write history; or rather, they pay copywriters to write history that pleases them. And that Shakespeare guy was a copywriter for the court of England; he was always a specialist in writing propaganda for the currently reigning dynasty; he was paid to embroider the official lie on the behalf another reigning european dynasty allied to his monarchess. What is sad is how former official lies become part of the folklore, and people blindly accept as historical truth or as pieces of art derived from historical truth what was actually brazen lies of the day, passed along by those nomenklaturist intellectuals who cultivate official lies.