Hamlet hurriedly walked to her room where she was uneasily waiting for him. On the way to his mother’s room, Hamlet saw Claudius kneeling down to pray in his room. He thought he could kill him right then. But he did not do it. He said to himself, “If I kill him when he is praying to God, he will not go to hell. I had better kill him when he is angry or doing something bad. Then he is sure to go to hell. ” So he stopped thinking of killing Claudius for the moment.
Hamlet did not know that the doubting king had commanded Polonius to hide behind the curtains in the queen’s room so that he could see what might happen there. As soon as Hamlet came into her room, his mother began to scold him for what he had done to the king. She said angrily, “You have made your father very angry. You must beg his pardon.”
Hamlet would not listen to her, but answered back. He said, “It is you who are to blame. You married that unkind and unkingly uncle of mine so soon after my father’s death. You should be ashamed of your deed. I will never accept him as my father. He does not deserve to be King of Denmark. I will tell you again. It is not I but you and that dirty Claudius that should repent.”
The queen became excited at hearing this and tried to run out of the room. Hamlet grabbed her by the wrist so roughly that she was frightened and cried out, “Are you going to kill me? Help! Help!”
On hearing the queen’s cry for help, Polonius, who was hiding behind the curtains, also cried, “Hamlet! Don’t hurt the queen. Someone! Help the queen!”
Hamlet shouted, “What is that? A rat?” Thinking that it was Claudius, he drew his sword and rushed to the curtains. The man behind the curtains fell dead. Hamlet was shocked to see the dead body of Polonius, Ophelia’s father, there.
“Oh, Hamlet. What a cruel thing you have done!” cried the queen in terror.
Hamlet answered, “No, it is not I but you that have done a cruel thing.”
Then suddenly, the ghost of his father appeared before them. His mother could neither see nor hear it. It said, “Hamlet, do not harm the queen, because she is your mother; kill Claudius as quickly as possible. Now, Hamlet, get out of this room!”
“Yes, I will, Father,” said Hamlet to the ghost. The queen thought that Hamlet was really mad. Hamlet obeyed his father’s advice and left the queen and the dead body of Polonius.
The queen hurried to the king and told him that Hamlet had killed Polonius in his madness. Upon hearing this, he thought of an evil plan. He said to himself, “Hamlet was mad enough to kill his lover’s father. He may kill me, too. I must send him somewhere else. I cannot live with such a dangerous person.”
Claudius made up his mind to send Hamlet over to England with his two men who used to be Hamlet’s old friends. He had the two men deliver a letter to the English king, in which he asked him to kill Hamlet as soon as they arrived in England. Though Hamlet had killed one of Claudius’s noblemen, all the people in the nation loved him very much. That was why Claudius could not kill Hamlet.
Hamlet and the two men set sail for England. While on board the ship, Hamlet asked himself why he was sent abroad. He became very uneasy. He suspected that Claudius must have planned something bad. He didn’t trust his two old friends, either.
While the two men were sleeping in the ship, Hamlet found the letter written by the king. He read it and knew the king’s plan. Hamlet had a good Idea. He rubbed out his name and wrote the names of the two men instead.
The next day Hamlet’s ship was attacked by pirates. Hamlet was so brave that he jumped onto the pirates’ ship and fought against them. While Hamlet was fighting, his ship sailed away. At last he was caught as a prisoner by several strong pirates. He told them that he was the Prince of Denmark. Then they suddenly became kind to him and promised his safe return to Denmark. Hamlet thanked them and promised to reward them after he became king of Denmark.
When Hamlet went ashore, he wrote to Claudius, telling him of his return to Denmark. He said in the letter that he would like to tell him everything that had happened at sea. He did not refer to the letter written to the English king. He also wrote to his best friend, Horatio, asking him to come to meet him the next day.
The following day they met and Hamlet told Horatio that the king had planned to kill him in England. They began walking toward the castle.
As they came near the castle, they saw two old men digging a grave. “Whose grave are you digging, old men?” asked Hamlet. They answered so uncertainly and strangely that Hamlet could not understand what they were saying. Little did he think that it was a grave for his dear Ophelia?
While Hamlet was away from Denmark, a very sad thing had happened to Ophelia. She began to lose her mind after she learned that her father had been killed by Hamlet. From then on she often walked around the castle alone, singing sadly. One day when she was walking near a stream, singing a sad love song, she found some pretty flowers there. Trying To pick them up, she slipped down the bank into the stream. Some time later she was found drowned. Neither Hamlet nor Horatio knew about this unhappy event.
A few minutes later, a group of men and women came to the grave. Hamlet and Horatio saw, among them, the king and queen, and Laertes, Ophelia’s brother. They were carrying the dead body of Ophelia. Hamlet and Horatio hid themselves behind the bushes in order that they might not be seen by them.