GHOST            O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!

If thou hast nature in thee bear it not,

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be

A couch for luxury and damned incest.

But howsomever thou pursues this act

Taint not thy mind nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge

To prick and sting her.          (1.5.80-88)

O horrible, O horrible, most horrible! (A line sometimes reassigned to Hamlet.) But it works very well for the Ghost: all the horror he’s seen and felt, and that he can imagine, and he still has to try—and inevitably fail—to put it into words. It’s beyond words; language is inadequate. Yeah, it’s—horrible. Really horrible. And now he turns to Hamlet even more directly: if thou hast nature in thee bear it not. If you’re my son, if you’re any kind of a decent human being—natural, not unnatural—you can’t stand for this. You’ve got to do something. Let not the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damned incest. (It’s the sexual betrayal, the grubbiness of it, more than the fratricidal murder that preoccupies the Ghost, it seems.) Don’t let my bed—and by extension, the throne—be polluted! But howsomever thou pursues this act—whatever you decide to do, by way of revenge—taint not thy mind nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught. You’ve got to stay calm, keep your head (hmmmm)—and don’t take it out on your mum. Please. Leave her to heaven—God will judge her!—and also she’s going to see the error of her ways soon enough; she’ll feel pangs of conscience alright, those thorns that in her bosom lodge will prick and sting her. She’s going to come to her senses and be properly sorry for what she’s done—and suffer for it.