Hamlet & Horatio's Friendship: Mutual, Reciprocal, Transformative, Free: (Part 15) Labors of Gratitude and Regret in Hamlet
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property). For more notes on the series and an index of previous posts in this series, see the end of this post.
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[Detail from 1839 painting by Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (Public Domain)]
Horatio and Hamlet enjoy a special friendship, though perhaps any friendship with a prince might at times seem one-sided. Horatio seems to have left Wittenberg of his own free will to honor the death of his king, his friend’s father. He was not commanded to come. When Hamlet asks in 1.2 what brings him to Denmark, Horatio jokingly says “A truant disposition,” an answer Hamlet will not accept because he knows Horatio better.
A good friendship, like a good marriage, is a labor of love. There is enough difference in points of view for the relationship to avoid feeling stale, but enough common ground to allow for fruitful dialogue. Friends celebrate one another’s successes, commiserate over setbacks or failures, and correct one another when it seems one is out of line, in error, mistaken, not being their best.
In that way, a good friendship is an ongoing and reciprocal exchange of gifts, accompanied by happy debts of gratitude. In the long term, we might be attracted to a friend or partner because we admire them and wish to learn from some of their best qualities. Over time, we may very well become like our friends.
In his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, in the chapter called “The Labor of Gratitude,” Lewis Hyde writes,
I would like to speak of gratitude as a labor undertaken by the soul to effect the transformation after a gift has been received. Between the time a gift comes to us and the time we pass it along, we suffer gratitude. Moreover, with gifts that are agents of change, it is only when the gift has worked in us, only when we have come up to its level, as it were, that we can give it away again. Passing the gift along is the act of gratitude that finishes the labor. The transformation is not accomplished until we have the power to give the gift on our own terms. Therefore, the end of the labor of gratitude is similarity with the gift or with its donor. Once this similarity has been achieved we may feel a lingering and generalized gratitude, but we won’t feel it with the urgency of true indebtedness. (47)
In recent weeks, I have been posting about how characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet are transformed by gratitude and regret. Some of these posts have been focused on specific moments where regret or gratitude come to fruition in some kind of change of direction, such as Polonius regretting having perhaps misjudged Hamlet's intentions toward his daughter, or Hamlet's change after being saved by pirates he views as instruments of a merciful Providence.
This post is a bit different for how it examines the friendship between Horatio and Hamlet, which is drawn out in certain ways that might appear ambiguous at first glance. But I think many of the dynamics Hyde describes here still apply, as I hope to show. Horatio and Hamlet's friendship might be viewed as transformative in the way Hyde describes.
Freely Chosen Friendship, not Compulsory
The fact that Horatio and Hamlet’s friendship is relatively freely chosen is important, in contrast with the “terms compulsory” (1.1) that Horatio describes regarding how Fortinbras would like to demand the return of lands lost when his father was killed. Their friendship is also in contrast with the very unequal relationship between Hamlet and what he believes is the ghost of his father: The ghost assumes that Hamlet must avenge his death (1.5). The relationship of a king to a subject and a father-king to his son is a very unequal one, even more so when the father seems to be a specter returned from the grave. The ghost makes no effort to note this imbalance of power and avoid abusing his son by it. Instead, the ghost exploits this very imbalance, using Hamlet to achieve his ends.
The ghost instructs Hamlet not to deal with his mother, but to leave her to heaven, and Hamlet disobeys this command. But regarding Claudius, even if Hamlet is reluctant to trust the ghost at first, or reluctant to put the eternal fate of his soul at risk by seeking revenge, what if, in the end, Hamlet finds that it would be best for Denmark if Claudius were executed, especially given that no court would rule against the king? A focus of the play is for Hamlet to make his own choice, on his own terms, so that his choice is a free one and not on “terms compulsory.”
So with this in mind, we might note some interesting dynamics in the free friendship enjoyed by Hamlet and Horatio. Theirs is a friendship we don’t have the luxury of witnessing in more leisurely moments; what we see is only at a crisis point, after the death of Hamlet’s father and remarriage of his mother to his uncle, and after the appearance of the ghost in 1.1, when Horatio has the strange burden of telling his friend that he thinks he has seen the ghost of his father.
Lord and Servant: Change Those Names?
I have noted before (here and here) that Horatio in 1.2 calls Hamlet his “lord” and presents himself to Hamlet as “your servant ever.” Hamlet responds by saying he would trade those names with Horatio, meaning Hamlet would be servant. This echoes lines in a number of the synoptic gospels in which Jesus tells the disciples that whoever would be first should be servant of all (Mk 9:35, Mt 20:26, Lk 14:11, Mk 10:44), and in John’s gospel, it echoes Jesus washing the feet of the disciples at the Last Supper, saying that if he, who is their lord and master, has washed their feet, so must they do for one another (Jn 13:14, 15:15).
Lord and Servant: “Be Ruled”?
This moment not only gives us a glimpse of the kind of person Hamlet is, and also the reciprocity of his friendship with Horatio, but it also foreshadows a moment in 1.4 when the ghost beckons to Hamlet to go off with him alone, and Marcellus and Horatio argue with him not to go and try to restrain him. Horatio tells Hamlet, “Be ruled. You shall not go.” (667)
Horatio had called Hamlet his lord, and presented himself as Hamlet’s “servant ever.” But Hamlet had said he would change those names with Horatio. Now that Horatio sees that his friend is in danger, Horatio wants to take Hamlet at his word: Let me be the lord and ruler now, and you be the servant, because you are in danger and not demonstrating good judgment. This is a bold thing, for Horatio to assert himself this way with the Prince of Denmark, his friend.
Get Behind Me, Satan
Hamlet, for his part, is in no mood to be ruled. This moment in 1.4, and a similar moment in 5.2, have Horatio advising Hamlet not to risk his life, but Hamlet disagreeing and making his own choice. In 5.2, Horatio feels the sword-play duel with Laertes may be a trap, but Hamlet responds that we know not when we will die, but “the readiness is all.”
Certainly, Shakespeare had many literary examples of friendship, including the close friendship of Achilles and Patroclus. Recall that, when the players arrive, Hamlet asks one to give a speech relating to the death of Priam at the hands of Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, a tale of repeated revenge and counter-revenge.
But by “terms compulsory,” all the people of England in Shakespeare’s time were required to attend church, where they heard of John, the “beloved disciple,” and of the other disciples. They read in their Geneva bibles of the close friendship between King David of the Hebrew scriptures and Jonathan. Recall that there seems to be a variety of allusions to the biblical King David stories in Hamlet, as I've noted in the past.
But perhaps most notably in relation to Horatio’s failed attempts to stop Hamlet from risking his life, people of Shakespeare’s time also read of Jesus, saying he would have to die, and Peter contradicting him, saying we can’t let that happen. Jesus famously rebukes Peter, saying, “Get behind me, Satan” (Mk 8:33, Mt 16:23). Sometimes a prince has to face danger and risk his life, a kind of duty. So although Horatio means well in both cases, Hamlet does what he feels he must.
Hamlet Returns the Favor
After Horatio attempts twice to save his friend from danger, failing both times, we might think that Hamlet doesn’t appreciate his friend’s protectiveness or efforts. But in fact, by the end of the play, Hamlet becomes more like Horatio: In 5.2, when Hamlet is dying, Horatio says he will drink some of the poison that is left in the cup so that he can die with his friend, but Hamlet stops him, saving him from suicide. It’s true that Hamlet is also acting in self-interest: He wants Horatio to live and tell his tale. So perhaps they both win.
Horatio, Necessary Skeptic
Somewhat persistently throughout the play, Horatio plays the skeptic. In the first scene, he is the Doubting Thomas who does not believe in ghosts. In 1.4, he doesn’t want Hamlet to follow the ghost. In 1.5, when he and Marcellus have already sworn but Hamlet asks them to swear again on his sword, Horatio resists: Why this fuss? We have already sworn.
After The Mousetrap in 3.2, Hamlet is convinced that he has caught the conscience of the king, and there follows this exchange with Horatio:
Hamlet
"Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
The heart ungallèd play,
For some must watch while some must sleep;
Thus runs the world away."
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers--if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
Horatio
Half a share.
Hamlet
A whole one, I.
For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself, and now reigns here
A very, very pajock.
Horatio
You might have rhymed.
Hamlet
O good Horatio, I'll take the Ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?
Horatio
Very well, my lord.
Hamlet
Upon the talk of the poisoning?
Horatio
I did very well note him.
(2143-2162)
Horatio here, a faithful friend, is still playing the skeptic, not a fawning, flattering pal trying to ingratiate himself with the prince, but one unwilling to be too enthusiastic when the prince is carried away. (We also get the bonus of an inside joke about what share Shakespeare owns in his playing company.)
Some productions have Horatio less than enthusiastic in agreeing that he noted Claudius’ reaction to the play and the talk of poisoning: Hamlet named the poisoner as “nephew to the king” instead of brother, so the play may have struck Claudius more as threat than as a pricking of his conscience, and Horatio may suspect this.
Horatio, Ophelia, and the Queen
In 4.5, in both the Second Quarto and the First Folio, Horatio plays a key role in convincing a reluctant Gertrude to speak to Ophelia, who seems to have gone mad.
In this scene, we might consider that Horatio views his role as one of protecting Ophelia, as a kind of stand-in for his friend Hamlet, who has not yet returned from sea.
Some scholars find Horatio's final reasoning (int he first quarto, 4.5) for encouraging Gertrude to talk to mad Ophelia problematic, that tongues will wag, a superficial reason for speaking to an Ophelia who very much needs to be spoken to. (2759-2760) But one could as easily claim that Horatio is being strategic here, choosing a line of argument to convince the queen, not because that final reason is the best of all reasons, but because it will work in convincing her.
Hamlet had urged his mother to consider her mistake in marrying Claudius, and his words seem to have sunk in. Gertrude expresses her sense of guilt in this scene just before Ophelia enters, and her exchanges with Ophelia, encouraged by Horatio, may help her continue her character arc:
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
(2762-2765)
So Was Hamlet Gay or Bisexual?
Many scholars much better versed in Shakespeare, gender, and queer theory would know far more on this issue than I do, but basically, attitudes in Shakespeare's time about sex were not the same as ours are today. Some men had sexual relations with other men while themselves being married to women, as many have speculated was the case with Shakespeare himself. They would not have labeled such relationships quite the same as we do today. Hamlet says in the graveyard (5.1) that he loved Ophelia, and he seems sincere, but this does not preclude other possibilities. Whether his relationship with Horatio was Platonic or more may be beside the point. Productions of the play over the centuries have explored many possibilities, and usually including the concerns of their own age and social/cultural context. For those interested in this topic, see Myrlin A. Hermes' blog post, "Was Hamlet gay? The textual evidence...," here, and also the following article about a production of Hamlet 2011 by the Ottawa Shakespeare Company, which explored this angle, here.
Difference, Mutual Respect, and High Praise
Overall, the friendship of Horatio and Hamlet is marked by difference (they frequently express at least slight differences of opinion), mutual respect, and for Horatio, even high praise from his friend Hamlet:
Hamlet
Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal.
Horatio
Oh, my dear lord--
Hamlet
Nay, do not think I flatter,
For what advancement may I hope from thee
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish her election,
Sh'hath sealed thee for herself, for thou hast been
As one in suff'ring all that suffers nothing,
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. (1904-1925)
As Hamlet is the one character in the play who is referred to (or refers to himself) as poor, or beggar, or begging, most often, one might imagine that Hamlet could gesture to himself and Horatio both when he delivers the line, “Why should the poor be flattered?” (1910). He knows Horatio is not rich, and he feels himself poor, a prisoner in Denmark and a beggar.
Hamlet seems to feel he needs a friend like Horatio, perhaps because he knows he is himself too much a slave to his own passions. He lives in a palace where people like Polonius flatter Claudius, telling him what he likes to hear, and who turn Hamlet’s old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern against him for what reward they might hope to gain from the king and queen. Horatio seems to be unlike these others, a relatively poor man who, at least in Hamlet’s mind, does not seek reward.
Some scholars view Horatio's summary to Fortinbras in 5.2 of the tale he must tell as a kind of application for the job of Polonius: to be the key advisor to the king; some of these also find great fault in how his summary falls far short of telling the story well. Perhaps they are seeing important things that I am missing, or perhaps it is "greatly to find quarrel in a straw" as Hamlet puts it in 4.4
(2743.49).
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[All Hamlet quotes are from the Modern, Editor's Version, edited by David Bevington, available at Internet Shakespeare, from the University of Victoria, Canada.]
[All quotes from the 1599 Geneva Bible are from BibleGateway.com, which has a wide range of bible translations but modernizes spellings and is therefore not a preferred source for scholars, but more accessible.]
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NOTE ON THIS SERIES OF POSTS:
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property).
- The more I examine characters in this way, the more I realize how the major characters in Hamlet are dynamic characters who change, becoming better or worse in one way or another. This approach goes against the grain of a great deal of scholarship that seems to reify (or thing-ify) too many characters (as foil, as Oedipal, as Machiavellian, etc.) and view them as more static, rather than as dynamic, fluid, interacting. For an index of previous posts in this series, see below.
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Index of other posts in this series:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/09/index-character-arcs-labors-of.html
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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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Thanks for reading!
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[Detail from 1839 painting by Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (Public Domain)]
Horatio and Hamlet enjoy a special friendship, though perhaps any friendship with a prince might at times seem one-sided. Horatio seems to have left Wittenberg of his own free will to honor the death of his king, his friend’s father. He was not commanded to come. When Hamlet asks in 1.2 what brings him to Denmark, Horatio jokingly says “A truant disposition,” an answer Hamlet will not accept because he knows Horatio better.
A good friendship, like a good marriage, is a labor of love. There is enough difference in points of view for the relationship to avoid feeling stale, but enough common ground to allow for fruitful dialogue. Friends celebrate one another’s successes, commiserate over setbacks or failures, and correct one another when it seems one is out of line, in error, mistaken, not being their best.
In that way, a good friendship is an ongoing and reciprocal exchange of gifts, accompanied by happy debts of gratitude. In the long term, we might be attracted to a friend or partner because we admire them and wish to learn from some of their best qualities. Over time, we may very well become like our friends.
In his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, in the chapter called “The Labor of Gratitude,” Lewis Hyde writes,
I would like to speak of gratitude as a labor undertaken by the soul to effect the transformation after a gift has been received. Between the time a gift comes to us and the time we pass it along, we suffer gratitude. Moreover, with gifts that are agents of change, it is only when the gift has worked in us, only when we have come up to its level, as it were, that we can give it away again. Passing the gift along is the act of gratitude that finishes the labor. The transformation is not accomplished until we have the power to give the gift on our own terms. Therefore, the end of the labor of gratitude is similarity with the gift or with its donor. Once this similarity has been achieved we may feel a lingering and generalized gratitude, but we won’t feel it with the urgency of true indebtedness. (47)
In recent weeks, I have been posting about how characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet are transformed by gratitude and regret. Some of these posts have been focused on specific moments where regret or gratitude come to fruition in some kind of change of direction, such as Polonius regretting having perhaps misjudged Hamlet's intentions toward his daughter, or Hamlet's change after being saved by pirates he views as instruments of a merciful Providence.
This post is a bit different for how it examines the friendship between Horatio and Hamlet, which is drawn out in certain ways that might appear ambiguous at first glance. But I think many of the dynamics Hyde describes here still apply, as I hope to show. Horatio and Hamlet's friendship might be viewed as transformative in the way Hyde describes.
Freely Chosen Friendship, not Compulsory
The fact that Horatio and Hamlet’s friendship is relatively freely chosen is important, in contrast with the “terms compulsory” (1.1) that Horatio describes regarding how Fortinbras would like to demand the return of lands lost when his father was killed. Their friendship is also in contrast with the very unequal relationship between Hamlet and what he believes is the ghost of his father: The ghost assumes that Hamlet must avenge his death (1.5). The relationship of a king to a subject and a father-king to his son is a very unequal one, even more so when the father seems to be a specter returned from the grave. The ghost makes no effort to note this imbalance of power and avoid abusing his son by it. Instead, the ghost exploits this very imbalance, using Hamlet to achieve his ends.
The ghost instructs Hamlet not to deal with his mother, but to leave her to heaven, and Hamlet disobeys this command. But regarding Claudius, even if Hamlet is reluctant to trust the ghost at first, or reluctant to put the eternal fate of his soul at risk by seeking revenge, what if, in the end, Hamlet finds that it would be best for Denmark if Claudius were executed, especially given that no court would rule against the king? A focus of the play is for Hamlet to make his own choice, on his own terms, so that his choice is a free one and not on “terms compulsory.”
So with this in mind, we might note some interesting dynamics in the free friendship enjoyed by Hamlet and Horatio. Theirs is a friendship we don’t have the luxury of witnessing in more leisurely moments; what we see is only at a crisis point, after the death of Hamlet’s father and remarriage of his mother to his uncle, and after the appearance of the ghost in 1.1, when Horatio has the strange burden of telling his friend that he thinks he has seen the ghost of his father.
Lord and Servant: Change Those Names?
I have noted before (here and here) that Horatio in 1.2 calls Hamlet his “lord” and presents himself to Hamlet as “your servant ever.” Hamlet responds by saying he would trade those names with Horatio, meaning Hamlet would be servant. This echoes lines in a number of the synoptic gospels in which Jesus tells the disciples that whoever would be first should be servant of all (Mk 9:35, Mt 20:26, Lk 14:11, Mk 10:44), and in John’s gospel, it echoes Jesus washing the feet of the disciples at the Last Supper, saying that if he, who is their lord and master, has washed their feet, so must they do for one another (Jn 13:14, 15:15).
Lord and Servant: “Be Ruled”?
This moment not only gives us a glimpse of the kind of person Hamlet is, and also the reciprocity of his friendship with Horatio, but it also foreshadows a moment in 1.4 when the ghost beckons to Hamlet to go off with him alone, and Marcellus and Horatio argue with him not to go and try to restrain him. Horatio tells Hamlet, “Be ruled. You shall not go.” (667)
Horatio had called Hamlet his lord, and presented himself as Hamlet’s “servant ever.” But Hamlet had said he would change those names with Horatio. Now that Horatio sees that his friend is in danger, Horatio wants to take Hamlet at his word: Let me be the lord and ruler now, and you be the servant, because you are in danger and not demonstrating good judgment. This is a bold thing, for Horatio to assert himself this way with the Prince of Denmark, his friend.
Get Behind Me, Satan
Hamlet, for his part, is in no mood to be ruled. This moment in 1.4, and a similar moment in 5.2, have Horatio advising Hamlet not to risk his life, but Hamlet disagreeing and making his own choice. In 5.2, Horatio feels the sword-play duel with Laertes may be a trap, but Hamlet responds that we know not when we will die, but “the readiness is all.”
Certainly, Shakespeare had many literary examples of friendship, including the close friendship of Achilles and Patroclus. Recall that, when the players arrive, Hamlet asks one to give a speech relating to the death of Priam at the hands of Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, a tale of repeated revenge and counter-revenge.
But by “terms compulsory,” all the people of England in Shakespeare’s time were required to attend church, where they heard of John, the “beloved disciple,” and of the other disciples. They read in their Geneva bibles of the close friendship between King David of the Hebrew scriptures and Jonathan. Recall that there seems to be a variety of allusions to the biblical King David stories in Hamlet, as I've noted in the past.
But perhaps most notably in relation to Horatio’s failed attempts to stop Hamlet from risking his life, people of Shakespeare’s time also read of Jesus, saying he would have to die, and Peter contradicting him, saying we can’t let that happen. Jesus famously rebukes Peter, saying, “Get behind me, Satan” (Mk 8:33, Mt 16:23). Sometimes a prince has to face danger and risk his life, a kind of duty. So although Horatio means well in both cases, Hamlet does what he feels he must.
Hamlet Returns the Favor
After Horatio attempts twice to save his friend from danger, failing both times, we might think that Hamlet doesn’t appreciate his friend’s protectiveness or efforts. But in fact, by the end of the play, Hamlet becomes more like Horatio: In 5.2, when Hamlet is dying, Horatio says he will drink some of the poison that is left in the cup so that he can die with his friend, but Hamlet stops him, saving him from suicide. It’s true that Hamlet is also acting in self-interest: He wants Horatio to live and tell his tale. So perhaps they both win.
Horatio, Necessary Skeptic
Somewhat persistently throughout the play, Horatio plays the skeptic. In the first scene, he is the Doubting Thomas who does not believe in ghosts. In 1.4, he doesn’t want Hamlet to follow the ghost. In 1.5, when he and Marcellus have already sworn but Hamlet asks them to swear again on his sword, Horatio resists: Why this fuss? We have already sworn.
After The Mousetrap in 3.2, Hamlet is convinced that he has caught the conscience of the king, and there follows this exchange with Horatio:
Hamlet
"Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
The heart ungallèd play,
For some must watch while some must sleep;
Thus runs the world away."
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers--if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
Horatio
Half a share.
Hamlet
A whole one, I.
For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself, and now reigns here
A very, very pajock.
Horatio
You might have rhymed.
Hamlet
O good Horatio, I'll take the Ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?
Horatio
Very well, my lord.
Hamlet
Upon the talk of the poisoning?
Horatio
I did very well note him.
(2143-2162)
Horatio here, a faithful friend, is still playing the skeptic, not a fawning, flattering pal trying to ingratiate himself with the prince, but one unwilling to be too enthusiastic when the prince is carried away. (We also get the bonus of an inside joke about what share Shakespeare owns in his playing company.)
Some productions have Horatio less than enthusiastic in agreeing that he noted Claudius’ reaction to the play and the talk of poisoning: Hamlet named the poisoner as “nephew to the king” instead of brother, so the play may have struck Claudius more as threat than as a pricking of his conscience, and Horatio may suspect this.
Horatio, Ophelia, and the Queen
In 4.5, in both the Second Quarto and the First Folio, Horatio plays a key role in convincing a reluctant Gertrude to speak to Ophelia, who seems to have gone mad.
In this scene, we might consider that Horatio views his role as one of protecting Ophelia, as a kind of stand-in for his friend Hamlet, who has not yet returned from sea.
Some scholars find Horatio's final reasoning (int he first quarto, 4.5) for encouraging Gertrude to talk to mad Ophelia problematic, that tongues will wag, a superficial reason for speaking to an Ophelia who very much needs to be spoken to. (2759-2760) But one could as easily claim that Horatio is being strategic here, choosing a line of argument to convince the queen, not because that final reason is the best of all reasons, but because it will work in convincing her.
Hamlet had urged his mother to consider her mistake in marrying Claudius, and his words seem to have sunk in. Gertrude expresses her sense of guilt in this scene just before Ophelia enters, and her exchanges with Ophelia, encouraged by Horatio, may help her continue her character arc:
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
(2762-2765)
So Was Hamlet Gay or Bisexual?
Many scholars much better versed in Shakespeare, gender, and queer theory would know far more on this issue than I do, but basically, attitudes in Shakespeare's time about sex were not the same as ours are today. Some men had sexual relations with other men while themselves being married to women, as many have speculated was the case with Shakespeare himself. They would not have labeled such relationships quite the same as we do today. Hamlet says in the graveyard (5.1) that he loved Ophelia, and he seems sincere, but this does not preclude other possibilities. Whether his relationship with Horatio was Platonic or more may be beside the point. Productions of the play over the centuries have explored many possibilities, and usually including the concerns of their own age and social/cultural context. For those interested in this topic, see Myrlin A. Hermes' blog post, "Was Hamlet gay? The textual evidence...," here, and also the following article about a production of Hamlet 2011 by the Ottawa Shakespeare Company, which explored this angle, here.
Difference, Mutual Respect, and High Praise
Overall, the friendship of Horatio and Hamlet is marked by difference (they frequently express at least slight differences of opinion), mutual respect, and for Horatio, even high praise from his friend Hamlet:
Hamlet
Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal.
Horatio
Oh, my dear lord--
Hamlet
Nay, do not think I flatter,
For what advancement may I hope from thee
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish her election,
Sh'hath sealed thee for herself, for thou hast been
As one in suff'ring all that suffers nothing,
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. (1904-1925)
As Hamlet is the one character in the play who is referred to (or refers to himself) as poor, or beggar, or begging, most often, one might imagine that Hamlet could gesture to himself and Horatio both when he delivers the line, “Why should the poor be flattered?” (1910). He knows Horatio is not rich, and he feels himself poor, a prisoner in Denmark and a beggar.
Hamlet seems to feel he needs a friend like Horatio, perhaps because he knows he is himself too much a slave to his own passions. He lives in a palace where people like Polonius flatter Claudius, telling him what he likes to hear, and who turn Hamlet’s old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern against him for what reward they might hope to gain from the king and queen. Horatio seems to be unlike these others, a relatively poor man who, at least in Hamlet’s mind, does not seek reward.
Some scholars view Horatio's summary to Fortinbras in 5.2 of the tale he must tell as a kind of application for the job of Polonius: to be the key advisor to the king; some of these also find great fault in how his summary falls far short of telling the story well. Perhaps they are seeing important things that I am missing, or perhaps it is "greatly to find quarrel in a straw" as Hamlet puts it in 4.4
(2743.49).
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[All Hamlet quotes are from the Modern, Editor's Version, edited by David Bevington, available at Internet Shakespeare, from the University of Victoria, Canada.]
[All quotes from the 1599 Geneva Bible are from BibleGateway.com, which has a wide range of bible translations but modernizes spellings and is therefore not a preferred source for scholars, but more accessible.]
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NOTE ON THIS SERIES OF POSTS:
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property).
- The more I examine characters in this way, the more I realize how the major characters in Hamlet are dynamic characters who change, becoming better or worse in one way or another. This approach goes against the grain of a great deal of scholarship that seems to reify (or thing-ify) too many characters (as foil, as Oedipal, as Machiavellian, etc.) and view them as more static, rather than as dynamic, fluid, interacting. For an index of previous posts in this series, see below.
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Index of other posts in this series:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/09/index-character-arcs-labors-of.html
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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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Thanks for reading!
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My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible, about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.
Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list):
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html
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