Great was the sorrow in Denmark when the good King Hamlet suddenly died in a mysterious manner. The rightful heir, the young Prince Hamlet, was at that time absent in Germany, studying at the University of Wittenberg, and before he could reach home, his uncle Claudius, brother to the late King, had seized the throne. More than this: within two months after the death of her husband, Claudius had persuaded the widowed Queen Gertrude to marry himself. Hamlet, called back to Denmark by the death of his father, met on his return this second terrible shock of the hasty marriage of his mother. To one of his noble nature such an action seemed almost incredible. For not only had Queen Gertrude been apparently devoted to her first husband, but the two brothers were so absolutely different, both in appearance and character, that it was difficult to imagine how anyone who had known the noble King Hamlet could descend to the base and contemptible Claudius. King Claudius now usurped all the rights of sovereignty, and by being very suave and gracious to those who surrounded him he hoped to become popular. He would fain have banished all remembrance of the late King, though he was glib enough in uttering hypocritical words of sorrow. By pressing on the festivities of his marriage with Gertrude, he hoped to get rid of all signs of mourning. But the young Prince Hamlet refused to lay aside his suits of woe. Among the gay throng that crowded the Court of the new monarch he moved, a figure apart, clad in the deepest black, and with his brow clouded with melancholy. His mother, Queen Gertrude, tried some feeble attempts at consolation, but her commonplace, conventional remarks only showed how shallow was her own nature, and how far she was from understanding her son’s depth of feeling. She begged him to put off his sombre raiment, and look with a friendly eye on his uncle. “Do not for ever with thy veiled lids seek for thy noble father in the dust,” she urged him. “Thou knowest it is common; all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.” “Ay, madam, it is common,” replied Hamlet. “If it be, why seems it so particular with thee?” asked the Queen. “‘Seems’ madam! Nay, it _is_; I know not ‘seems,’” said Hamlet, with noble indignation. And then he went on to say that it was not his inky cloak, nor the customary suits of solemn black, nor sighs, nor tears, nor a dejected visage, together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, that could denote him truly. “These indeed ‘seem,’ for they are actions that a man might play. But I have that within which passeth show; these but the trappings and the suits of woe.”