Upon Seeing the Play Hamlet, an Elizabethan's Tale

My most honored friends, I share with you this day of our Lord the 23 of January a most felicitous event of yestereve. When with our own dear cousin and the right honorable Lord Mayor I assayed to frequent the Globe Theatre during a performance of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, a happier time I have not spent. The performance was nigh unto four hours, yet willingly I could waste my time there on another occasion. Having seen Kyd's Spanish Tragedy a fortnight ago, I anticipated a tale of revenge and tragedy that would make my pulse, yea, my very heart, race. But what happened in Act the Third could not have surprised me more. The character of the new king did not die in the midst of the “Murder of Gonzago.” Aye, murder most foul, it was, for in the story’s glass playgoers all saw the selfsame tale that fretted and strutted itself upon the stage—a tale not of bawdry but of a king bereft of life by one closest to himself.

My friends and I thought the character of Hamlet one of exquisite introspection, such that he would fain have contemplated that most heinous of acts and that which the Almighty has fix’d His canon against, even self-slaughter. Indeed, Hamlet did himself agonize over this very thought in a speech beginning “To be or not to be” with such piteous dolor as would make one cry “Woe!” Our happy group did find the presentation of the ghost most frightening (more real and more ominous than that of Don Andrea or Revenge), Ophelia’s drowning most tragical (more so than the fearful end of Isabella and of Bel-Imperia in Kyd’s tale), Hamlet’s woeful end most regrettable (far surpassing any sorrow at Hieronimo’s death), and indeed the entrance of Fortinbras most heroical and hopeful for the state (beyond what lay in store for that wretched Spain).

For me the high point of the drama was the woeful moment in the final Act when Hamlet and his wretched mother realize too late that her husband, the wicked king, has murthered them both alike. The envenomed tip, the poisoned cup, the knowledge betwixt them both did force mine eyes and the eyes of all around me weep to look upon the sight. The actors did make us every one believe that they were in verity the persons whose grand story they represented so that we Fortinbras did say “Go, bid the soldiers shoot,” we looked around to spy the regulars discharge the guns.