running
away from the ghost he spoke to it--and when it beckoned him he followed
it to a quiet place, and there the ghost told him that what he had
suspected was true. The wicked Claudius had indeed killed his good
brother the King, by dropping poison into his ear as he slept in his
orchard in the afternoon.

"And you," said the ghost, "must avenge this cruel murder-- on my wicked
brother. But do nothing against the Queen-- for I have loved her, and
she is your mother. Remember me."

Then seeing the morning approach, the ghost vanished.

"Now," said Hamlet, "there is nothing left but revenge. Remember thee--I
will remember nothing else--books, pleasure, youth--let all go--and your
commands alone live on my brain."

So when his friends came back he made them swear to keep the secret of
the ghost, and then went in from the battlements, now gray with mingled
dawn and moonlight, to think how he might best avenge his murdered
father.

The shock of seeing and hearing his father's ghost made him feel almost
mad, and for fear that his uncle might notice that he was not himself,
he determined to hide his mad longing for revenge under a pretended
madness in other matters.

And when he met Ophelia, who loved him--and to whom he had given gifts,
and letters, and many loving words--he behaved so wildly to her, that
she could not but think him mad. For she loved him so that she could not
believe he would be as cruel as this, unless he were quite mad. So she
told her father, and showed him a pretty letter from Hamlet. And in the
letter was much folly, and this pretty verse--

"Doubt that the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love."

And from that time everyone believed that the cause of Hamlet's supposed
madness was love.

Poor Hamlet was very unhappy. He longed to obey his father's ghost--and
yet he was too gentle and kindly to wish to kill another man, even his
father's murderer. And sometimes he wondered whether, after all, the
ghost spoke truly.

Just at this time some actors came to the Court, and Hamlet ordered them
to perform a certain play before the King and Queen. Now, this play
was the story of a man who had been murdered in his garden by a near
relation, who afterwards married the dead man's wife.

You may imagine the feelings of the wicked King, as he sat on his
throne, with the Queen beside him and all his Court ar