L'ecriture humaine: Hamlet's pacifist subtext: two kings' fight for land

In Act I scene 1 of Hamlet, Shakespeare's begins his startling pacifist subtext. Part of what makes the opening so ominous is Claudius' war preparation. The two palace guards stand uneasy on dark, eery, misty castle ramparts late at night, knowing that the world is changing but not what any of it means. They realize that the more powerfully connected Horatio will have information. When he arrives, they ask him about the feverish arms build up while hoping that he will validate the existence of a ghost.

Horatio explains the background. Fortinbras, king of Norway, dared Hamlet (Hamlet's father), king of Denmark, to hand-to-hand combat over a piece of land. The loser was to forfeit the contested territory. King Hamlet won by killing King Fortinbras. Now, however, that both kings are dead, Fortinbras' son Fortinbras is marching with an army to avenge his father and regain the small territory. 

This is a remarkable story, one that seems a fantasia. How often have people asked: why not save all the suffering and bloodshed of war by having the leaders of two countries fight to settle a dispute? The thinking is that if they had to risk their own lives, world leaders would be less likely to jump into conflicts. Beyond that, how much easier, how much less horrible, to have disputes settled this way? 

Here, Shakespeare gives full reign to this fantasy as part of the play's prehistory.

David' Oath of the Horatii shows the mourning of the women.

While there are no modern equivalents to two kings settling a dispute through hand-to-hand combat, there is an ancient one of proxy warfare. Livy tells the story of the Roman king and the Sabine dictator deciding to avoid a war through a fight to the death between six of their warriors. The Romans send out their three Horatii to fight the three Sabine Curiatii. Rome wins.  The peace lasts as long as a peace usually does.

Moving back to Hamlet we learn, too, in these early scenes, that Hamlet's ghost is suffering terrible torments in purgatory as his sins are burned away. If he were allowed to speak of them, he tells Hamlet, the torments  would stand Hamlet's hair on end. This offer a contrasting portrait of his father from the one Hamlet presents. Hamlet describes his father as  a Hyperion--a sun god--in contrast to the oversexed, animalistic "satyr" of Claudius. Yet Hamlet senior's own testimony suggests he has much to atone for--while at the same time, perhaps it is commendable when a king, unable to repent of sins before death, ends up in purgatory rather than hell.

By the end of the play, Hamlet has achieved an inner peace. What he considers his miraculous escape from death at the hands of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in England leads him to believe that a benign God has the world in his hands. For the first time, Hamlet rests easy. He tells Horatio:

...  our deep plots do pall, and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will—

The deep plots that do pall or pale or fail are Claudius' against Hamlet. God, Hamlet thinks, is on his side and protecting him. He does not, as people don't when God' grace seems to fall on them, question why God would favor them but kill others. Hamlet doesn't wonder that God allows Rosencrantz or Guildenstern--or for that matter his own father--to die. His own sense of divine protection is enough.

Hamlet does not kill Claudius until he realizes Claudius has poisoned Gertrude by letting her drink from the poisoned chalice meant for Hamlet. As it has been throughout the play, only the threat Claudius poses to his mother can motivate Hamlet to kill a fellow royal.

A subversively peaceful subtext run through Hamlet. Two kings fight to the death over a piece of land to spare their armies the bloody cost of battle. A prince who loves his murdered father loathes the idea of avenging his death. When this prince tries to use the example of a fellow prince marching on his country to inspire himself to revenge, he ends, instead, profoundly questioning waging a war for something as fragile as honor. Being a prince, Hamlet is inherently a dangerous individual because of the power put into his hands. At the same time, the soul of this prince, self-deluded as it is, longs for peace. Through him, Shakespeare encourages us to question vengeance, warfare, and privilege--and to dream of a world in which princes would fight for land themselves rather than putting armies in the field.