Hamlet Knew Grief

The Bard's most famous play begins with the sighting of the ghost of Hamlet's newly deceased father, King Hamlet. (Later, of course, we learn it's been a murder committed by his own brother, Claudius.)

Young Hamlet doesn't take it well. Mopes around Wears black. His mother and her new husband (yes, Claudius--now the King of Denmark) get on his case early in the play, asking him why he just doesn't, you know, lighten up. Get over it.

At the bottom of this post, I've pasted a bit of their exchange in Act 1, Scene 2.

But I think the part I like the most is when his mother asks him why--if he knows death is common--that "it seems so particular with thee." Why, to Hamlet, does it seem so ... special.

And Hamlet fires back: Hey, this isn't seems. This is. I'm not playing, Mom. This is real. "I have that within which passes show"--that which is more than mere appearance.

There's a saying in our language, a saying that's very familiar to all of us: Get over it. We think or actually say this to people who are suffering in some way--a heartbreak, a loss, a disappointment, a death of a loved one.

But this is what I've learned in my three score and ten (plus three!): You don't ever "get over" the wounds to the heart.

And, you know, I don't want to "get over" the deaths of people I've loved. I want that tear in my eye every time I think of my father, my mother. I want to dissolve when I tell stories about them. I need to keep them close to me, so close that the mere thought of them will send a shiver through my heart, a shiver that only a dear memory of them can warm.

KING CLAUDIUS: How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET: Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

QUEEN GERTRUDE: Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,

And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.

Do not for ever with thy vailed lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET: Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE: If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET: Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,

Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,

That can denote me 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.