HAMLET         O my prophetic soul!

My uncle!

GHOST            Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,

With witchcraft of his wits, with traitorous gifts –

O wicked wit and gifts that have the power

So to seduce – won to his shameful lust

The will of my most seeming-virtuous Queen.       (1.5.40-46)

O my prophetic soul! My uncle! I knew it! says Hamlet, I knew it in my very bones. (He has given no prior indication of such knowledge: is this a desire to agree with the Ghost, to show he understands and is following, or is it a realisation, or indeed a voicing of something that has hitherto been too hideous and dangerous to articulate?) Then the Ghost starts to let rip in earnest, full of pain and disgust and moral outrage. It’s not the murder he begins with, it’s his brother’s relationship with his wife-widow. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, my own brother, guilty of incest in marrying his sister-in-law, and of adultery. It’s never made clear whether Claudius and Gertrude have begun their relationship before her husband’s death—productions and especially films, with flashbacks possible, make different choices; the characters’ relative ages can also come into play here—although this is one of the passages which implies that this might have been the case. He seduced her! says Ghost. With witchcraft of his wits, cunning and smooth talk (I’m just an old soldier, is implied, a doer not a talker); with traitorous gifts. He was always giving her little things, you know I was never good at all that. (Part of the pain and gut-punch of this scene is Hamlet being confronted with insights into his parents’ marriage, which may or may not accord with his own assumptions and memories, probably the latter. He doesn’t want to hear this behind-closed-doors adult stuff.) Traitorous gifts can also be personal qualities, the ability to betray, the kind of personality and charisma that is deceptive. O wicked wit and gifts that have the power so to seduce! Damn all of it, the conversation, the shared running jokes, the daring asides, the presents. He had the time that I didn’t. He set out to seduce her and he did. He—my brother, her brother-in-law—won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming-virtuous Queen. His campaign succeeded, and yes it was about his desire for her but also his desire to defeat me in the only way he could. And he made her want him back. But I thought she was better than that. I thought that she was my loyal, faithful wife. It didn’t cross my mind…