“Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, (O wicked wit and gifts that have the power So to seduce!) won to his shameful lust The will of my most seeming virtuous queen: Oh, Hamlet, what a falling off was there! From me, whose love was of that dignity That it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage, and to decline Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor To those of mine! But virtue--as it never will be moved Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven, So lust, though to a radiant angel linked, Will sate itself in a celestial bed, And prey on garbage.” Reading this passage, can any one doubt that the ghost charges his late wife with adultery, as the root of all his woes? It is true that, obedient to the ghost’s injunctions, as well as his own filial instincts, Hamlet accuses his mother of no more than was patent to all the world; but unless we suppose the ghost misinformed or mistaken, we must accept this charge. And had Gertrude not yielded to the witchcraft of Claudius’ wit, Claudius would never have murdered Hamlet. Through her his life was dishonoured, and his death violent and premature: unhuzled, disappointed, unaneled, he woke to the air--not of his orchard-blossoms, but of a prison-house, the lightest word of whose terrors would freeze the blood of the listener. What few men can say, he could--that his love to his wife had kept even step with the vow he made to her in marriage; and his son says of him-- “so loving to my mother That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly;” and this was her return! Yet is it thus he charges his son concerning her: “But howsoever thou pursu’st this act, Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven, And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, To prick and sting her.” And may we not suppose it to be for her sake in part that the ghost insists, with fourfold repetition, upon a sword-sworn oath to silence from Horatio and Marcellus? Only once again does he show himself--not now in armour upon the walls, but in his gown and in his wife’s closet.