GHOST            I am thy father’s spirit,

Doomed for a certain term to walk the night

And for the day confined to fast in fires

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid

To tell the secrets of my prison-house

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,

Thy knotted and combined locks to part

And each particular hair to stand on end

Like quills upon the fretful porpentine –

But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood.    (1.5.9-22)

One of the things that this scene might be doing—although it’s to think about it in a rather novelistic way—is that this is explaining why Hamlet is the way he is. His father has been introduced as the great warrior, suggesting that Claudius is the smooth-talking politician (as has already been seen). But my word the Ghost can talk, barely drawing a breath—and it’s almost all affect, not substance, and conditional: if I could tell you about what I’m experiencing, it’d terrify you, in the following ways. But I can’t tell you. It’s a weird, compelling thought experiment. How does it work?

I am thy father’s spirit: well, yes, but thank you for confirming. And I am doomed for a certain term to walk the night—I have to do this, I have no choice, I’ve been sentenced to it. Ghosts are nightwalkers, but there’s a suggestion of sleeplessness, sleepwalking too. Bad. But that’s just the start. I walk all night—haunting—but during the day, I am confined to fast in fires, imprisoned, starving, burning, till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away. I’m in purgatory, being cleansed of my sins. That he refers to foul crimes doesn’t necessarily suggest that he’s been particularly sinful in life: everyone is sinful, everyone spends time in purgatory, is the understanding. (Although obviously Shakespeare is writing in Protestant England and this very much does not seem to be a Protestant ghost.) The Ghost emphasises that his situation is time-limited; at some point it will end.

But in the meantime, it’s horrific beyond imagining. But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison-house—I’m not allowed to describe it (and this is the king, having to obey orders—whose, is left unspecified) I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul. The smallest, most insignificant, trivial detail of my story would appal you; harrow up has a terrible physicality to it, digging and tearing. It would freeze thy young blood—young blood is hotter, it would freeze even that, but there can be a tenderness, too, as the Ghost contemplates his son’s youth; there’s perhaps a perverse relief that he can’t tell, that he won’t put his son through that pain. It’d make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres—your eyes would be out on stalks, it’d blow your mind—and my tale would make thy knotted and combined locks to part and each particular hair to stand on end like quills upon the fretful porpentine. It’d make your hair stand on end, basically, but the extended evocation of that action makes it a process, detailed, able to be felt as much as pictured. (Porcupines were associated with melancholy and with satire; they were thought to be able to shoot their quills in anger.) (Much love for the fretful porpentine.)

Then, just when the hairs are standing up on the back of EVERYONE’s neck, the Ghost shuts it down: but this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood. I can’t describe it, not to anyone human, anyone still alive. It’s a terrible secret, a burden, and I can’t share it with you. I can’t.

So the Ghost’s first long speech is about the impossibility of telling, let alone doing. Like father, like son?