Chapter 4: I Am Thy Father's Spirit

On the castle battlements, Hamlet and his men waited in the bitter hours of the night, shivering against the cold wind and blowing their hands as the twelvth hour approached.

"The air is biting," Hamlet complained, rubbing the backs of his arms.

"Aye, twas twice as biting the night before," Horatio remarked.

"What hour now?" the prince wanted to know.

"I think it a little before twelve -- " began Horatio, but Marcellus shook his head, "No, tis struck."

"Indeed? I heard it not," said Horatio. "Then it's almost time -- the spirit will soon be upon us." He squinted at Hamlet uncertainly, "Are you very certain about this, my lord? I and Marcellus here have braved this shadowy creature and endured to tell the tale, but what if this ghost revealed itself a demon and carried us off to hell?"

Hamlet laughed sarcatically. "Horatio! Twas you who involved me in the first place! I have one mother too many, it seems."

Horatio chuckled sheepishly. "But you do not understand, my lord," he said, frowning, "for you have not seen this apparition with your own eyes. Shall I stand by and let it draw you into madness?"

"You shall if your prince and lord commands it," Hamlet answered, smiling. "Peace, Horatio," he said, clapping his friend's shoulder good-naturedly. "I was driven into madness long before this night."

Horatio opened his mouth to protest, but a low, doleful moan rang through the battlements, and the men trembled and gripped their partisans tightly.

"It comes! It comes!" moaned Marcellus, his knees knocking.

"Where?" hissed Hamlet, straightening up.

Horatio pointed, "There, my lord!"

The pale and haggard face of a man in armor loomed trough the darkness. The likeness of the late king fixed its colorless eyes on Hamlet, and moaned dolefully once more.

"It -- it beckons you, as if it desired some confidence with you!" stammered Horatio, clasping Hamlet's arm fast as his friend sought to move forward. "Do not follow it -- I beg of you!"

"Do not go with it," begged Marcellus, quaking. "Its eyes are those of the very devil!"

"Buy why? And what came I here for then?" demanded Hamlet crossly. "And why should I fear he who is but my father? I feared him little in life and will fear him even less in death -- " and he started forward again, but his men stepped forward and held him fast, begging that he stay with them and follow not the apparition.

"But what if it only leads you to some steep summit where you may fall to your death?" implored Horatio. "Or what if, once it has you alone, it turns into some dreadful creature and drags you away -- "

"Go on, I will follow thee," said Hamlet, nodding to the hovering apparition, and the haggard and bent late king turned and drifted mournfully up the large stone steps.

"Now, good men, I command you: hold off your hands!" Hamlet growled impatiently. "And leave me to speak with he who is my father."

"Be ruled by us: you shall not go!" said Horatio stubbornly.

"My fate beckons me!" Hamlet snapped at them. "Beckons with a haggard and unseemly eye! Unhand me, gentlemen, and let fate take its course -- Go on," he added to the ghost that waited on the stairs with yet another nod, "I will follow thee."

And Hamlet broke from his nervous, quaking men and followed the grim and weary ghost up the flight of large stone steps.

Horatio and Marcellus hovered nervously, watching the strange pair disappear.

"Let's have after," Horatio said to Marcellus, who nodded and followed him as Hamlet had followed the ghost.

When Hamlet reached the top of the large stone steps, the ghostly apparition stood wearily against the battlements leaning on one arm like a man out of breath after a rough climb. His appearance was suddenly as solid as if he were living, and Hamlet was shocked by the substantial quality of the ghost's wrinkly face and scarred skin: it was as if his father were standing before him, alive.

"Will you not speak to me?" choked Hamlet, advancing carefully. He could feel already the tears rising to his eyes, but in the intensity of the moment, was too numb to shed them. "Will you not speak to me here? We can venture no further."

"Listen carefully to me," the ghost said, waving a weary hand and straightening up. He was as tall and imposing as he had been in life, his graying hair wilted as if with sweat and the bags under his eyes punctured with the fine lines of age.

Hamlet nodded, his mouth open. "I will."

"The hour is almost come . . . when to those tormenting flames I must return . . ."

"Alas," moaned Hamlet, closing his eyes and swallowing. "Poor wrenched ghost! Is hell your prison-house of pain?"

"Pity me not," said the ghost, and something mournful flickered in its eyes. "Only listen, and hear what I have to say."

"Speak; I am bound to hear."

"And so art thou bound to revenge, when thou shalt hear."

"What?" said Hamlet sharply.

The ghost drew a long breath, and Hamlet was shocked to see the pearly mist exhaled from its mouth into the cold night air.

"I am your father's spirit," the ghost said gravely. "Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, and during the day to suffer in the mist of eternal fire until the crimes done in my day are purged. Were I not forbidden, I could tell a tale of the tortures of my prison-house that would freeze thy young blood and make thine hair stand on end much like the fretful quills of a porcupine. . . ." He drew yet another low, weary breath and moaned miserably, "List, list, O list!" and his long and wrinkled hand lifted in a pleading gesture, "If thou didst thy dear father ever love -- "

Hamlet reached out for the offered hand as if to grasp it desperately in his own, not only for his father's comfort but for his own comfort as well, and felt an icy shiver run down his spine as his fingers plunged through it. "Oh god!" he whispered, shuddering, and drew his hand away.

"Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder!" the late king wailed, his jowls quaking.

Hamlet's eyes widened in horror, "Murder!"

"Murder most foul," confirmed the late king grimly, "as in the best it is. But this most foul, strange, and unnatural."

"Haste me to know it," begged Hamlet, leaning forward with such intense attention it seemed he would throw himself at the ghost. "Quickly tell me, that I may rush to my revenge!"

"I find thee apt," the ghost said with asatisfied light in the pale vacant eyes. "Now, Hamlet, hear: Tis given out that, sleeping in mine orchard, a serpent bit me and thus I died. But know thou this: that serpent that bit me is the same that wears my crown!"

"O prophetic soul! My uncle?" Hamlet moaned, his eyes flashing. He had been right: his uncle was as guilty as he'd suspected.

"Ay!" growled the ghost, his eyes flashing as angrily as Hamlet's. "That incestuous, that adulterate beast!" The ghost's teeth flashed, and Hamlet was amazed at its sudden solidity in its venem. "With his wicked traitorous gifts won he to his shameful lusts the will of my seeming-virtuous queen. O Hamlet," moaned the ghost, extending its hand again. "Despite those vows we made to each other in marriage, she feel to the wretch whose natural gifts pale in comparison to mine!"

"But soft!" the ghost cried, stirring. "Methinks I scent the morning air. Thus let me be breif: Sleeping within mine orchard, as was my afternoon custom, upon me did thy uncle steal and pour in mine ear the leperous distilment whose effect makes the blood in man posset and curd. Thus as I was sleeping, by my brother's hand, life, crown, queen -- all stolen from me! And with all my unconfessed sins on my head: O horrible! Horrible! Most horrible!" the ghost wailed, dragging a mournful hand over its face.

"Yet taint not thy mind, nor let thy heart feel hate toward thy mother," the ghost said, seeing with sharp eyes Hamlet's inner wrath. "Leave her to heaven." He nodded, as if willing Hamlet to nod with him, and Hamlet despaired to remember how he had done so in life.

"Fare thee well," the ghost said sadly, his lips twitching with a small smile as he watched, with gentle fondness, his son's miserable coutenance. He was beginning to fade and called in a deep trembling voice, "Adieu, adieu! And Hamlet -- !" he extended his hand again, and Hamlet, blinking back tears, stepped forward and let his warm and living hand sink into its icyness.

"Remember me!" wailed his father and was gone.

Breathless, Hamlet rushed to the spot where his father's spirit had disappeared and turned in circles there as if he would follow.

"Oh, Father, leave me not! And shall I cope with your hell and mine alone? O fie! Hold, hold, my heart," he cursed, placing a hand over his thundering chest. "And you, my legs, bear me up . . ." and he leaned against the battlements in almost the same attitude as the spirit, as if he would fall in a dead faint.

"Remember thee!" Hamlet sobbed, his head hung in his grief. "Always, dear Father, always! Thy commandment alone I shall live: revenge! O pernicious woman!" he cursed suddenly, thinking of his smiling mother as she danced with his uncle at their wedding. "O villian, villian, smiling, damned villian! So, uncle, there you are. 'Adieu, adieu!' he moaned! 'Remember me!' And I shall!" He struck his chest with the vow and straightened up as he heard the sound of footfall on the large stone steps.

"My lord! My lord!" cried the voice of Horatio, and then the voice of Marcellus called, "Lord Hamlet!"

"Hillo, ho, ho, my lord!" Hamlet heard Horatio call and called in turn, "Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come."

Horatio and Marcellus stumbled up the steps, following Hamlet's voice, and were stricken to see him so pale and shaken. He seemed in worse condition than when they had encountered the apparition themselves, and Horatio rushed to Hamlet, frowning, and took his arm.

"How was it, my noble lord?" Marcellus asked breathlessly.

"What news?" Horatio demanded.

"O wonderful," said Hamlet sarcastically, pushing past his men and starting toward the stairs, but a strange smile lingered around his lips, almost crazed, and the men exchanged meaningful looks as their lord's back was turned.

"Good, my lord," said Horatio carefully, "tell it."

"No, no," Hamlet muttered, covering his eyes with his hand. "You will reveal it."

"Not I, my lord, by heaven!" Horatio cried, genuinely shocked.

"Nor I," added Marcellus.

Hamlet turned to them and asked gravely, "You'll be secret?"

Horatio and Marcellus nodded and said at once, "Ay, by heaven, my lord."

"A villian dwells in Denmark, an errant knave."

"There needs no ghost come from the grave, my lord," said Horatio darkly, " to tell us that."

"And you're right," returned Hamlet, "and so I hold it my business that we shake hands and part. Every man here has business to attend to, and, look you, I'll go pray."

Horatio frowned and shook his head, "You speak in riddles, my lord. These are but wild and whirling words."

"I am sorry they offend you," Hamlet answered.

"There's no offence, my lord."

"Yes, by Saint Patrick, there is, Horatio. Concerning this vision here, the ghost is honest. And now, good friends, give me one poor request."

"What my lord wills, we will do," answered Horatio readily.

"Then never make known what you have seen and heard this night," Hamlet told them, unsheathing his sword. "And swear it."

Seeming from every direction came the commanding wail: "Swear it!" and Horatio and Marcellus trembled as a sudden icy gust of wind swept their faces.

Hamlet stood motionless, his sword-point touching the ground as he waited. "Upon my sword, gentlemen," he whispered. "Art thou there, true-penny?"

Shivering against the supernatural cold, Horatio and Marcellus swore on Hamlet's sword never to reveal what they had seen and heard that night. Satisfied, the ghost stopped its supernatural gusts, and Hamlet resheathed his sword.

"With all my love I do commend you," Hamlet said to Horatio, clasping his friend's hand. "And you," he said to Marcellus. "Let us then go in together and remember -- your fingers to your lips! The crowned king is false and O cursed spite! that I was ever born to set it right!"