Hamlet is a revenge tragedy of Elizabethan drama, written in about 1602 by William Shakespeare. It is based on the Historia Danica (1200) by Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish historian who wrote it in Latin. Later, an Italian version by Bandello, translated into French by Belleforest in his Cent Histoires Tragiques, was rendered into English in 1608 (Greenan, 83). In Shakespeare's play, the death of Old King Hamlet triggers different actions in its major characters; especially Hamlet, Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and to a lesser extent Polonius and Ophelia. These actions are disastrous not only to Denmark as a political entity; but also lead to the deaths of the all the play's characters, except for Horatio. .
In Act I Scene 5, the Ghost explains to Hamlet, how Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, murdered his father and that he wants Hamlet to avenge his death (I.v.38-90). The Ghost is directly linked to the majority of the play's themes. For example, he introduces the darkness of evil prevalent in Denmark and in its court, when he says: "A serpent stung me, so the whole ear of Denmark is a forged process of my death rankly abused: but know thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown." (I.v.35-39); and "Let not the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damned incest. But howsoever thou pursuest 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." (I.v.82-88). As a result of this evil, Hamlet suffers greatly when he learns of his mother's rushed marriage: "a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer-married with my uncle, my father's brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules: within a month, she married. O most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets" (I.ii.
