1. My favorite line in  Hamlet is a casual remark of Hamlet’s to Horatio, late in the play. It occurs just after he agrees to take part in his fatal fencing match with Laertes.  Hamlet had just been telling Horatio of the devious means by which his uncle the king has tried to get him killed, when a  courtier enters to inform him of the king’s interest in arranging the match.   Laertes is known to be a champion fencer, his unsurpassed prowess begrudgingly acknowledged even by the French. Nonetheless, Hamlet agrees, returning the answer that he’s willing to take part immediately. When the courtier leaves with the message, Horatio says plainly what any first-time audience or reader must be thinking, “You will lose, my lord.”  Hamlet’s nonchalant answer: “I do not think so. Since he went into France,  I have been in continual practice. I will win, at the odds.”

Wait– what??  “Continual practice”?   When was that, exactly? So far as the audience has been in a position to see, Hamlet has spent the last several months doing little but brooding alone, unsociable and unkempt. The only time he seemed to take any lively interest in the world was when stimulated by the chance visit of a touring theater troupe, without which he’d never have been roused to act on his seemingly-forgotten pledge to avenge his father’s murder. And now Shakespeare has Hamlet let drop – in the play’s final scene – he’s been at practice fencing, all of this time? Apparently so, for  Hamlet’s cool self-assurance is borne out in the bout: he fences well enough in the first two rounds – winning both – to make the king doubt that Laertes can get in a single touch. (After this, it gets messy.)

When had Hamlet been practicing? Laertes, recall, is a champion fencer (and also Hamlet’s sworn enemy). Continual practice would have to mean regular sparring, and probably also (if Hamlet’s skill has lately improved, as he seems to imply) extensive drilling as well.  So far as we know, Hamlet has had no other friend at Elsinore this whole time except Horatio, and Horatio seems to be no more apprized of this business than we are. With whom has Hamlet been practicing? Shakespeare supplies us with no information.

There’s more to be said about Hamlet’s fencing, but for now I’m mentioning this only for the purpose of framing a more general question, or cluster of questions, concerning the limits of what we can know about Hamlet, and Hamlet’s doings. What else might Hamlet have been up to, of which the audience is unaware? What else was he practicing, in all of the time he had seen merely passive and withdrawn, or else over-excitable and impulsive?  Hamlet’s psychology (his self-understanding) is famously elusive. By contrast, Hamlet’s doings are generally thought to be fully accounted for. The  seeming haphazardness in what we’re shown of those doings, over the course of the play, we ascribe to his being distracted, or skittish, or merely impulsive. But what if there’s more he’s been up to?

The word “practice,” in Shakespeare, can sometimes mean to dissimulate, or deceive. This is not unrelated to ‘practicing’ fencing, for fencing in Shakespeare’s time was known especially for techniques of feinting, deceptive evasive manoeuvres. In general, too, fencing was practice for handling weapons in actual duels; it looks like real fighting, but only in play.  When Hamlet and Laertes have their abortive bout, the stage direction reads: “They play.” (The playing turns fatal, but only because of the added deceit of Laertes’ poisoned rapier.) That’s not the only playing within the play Hamlet, of course. There’s also theatrical play-acting, performed by the troupe of professional actors – the “players” — who show up in Elsinore in Act II.  I’d like to examine some details in Hamlet’s behavior in the scene when the players arrive, keeping in mind the questions just posed.

2. The first we hear of the players is when Hamlet is told of their imminent arrival by his former schoolfellows Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who had passed them on the road to Elsinoire. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had themselves just shown up, unexpectedly, and were studiously vague to Hamlet about what they were doing in Elsinore. When they say they have come merely to pay him a visit, Hamlet is immediately suspicious, and presses them to know their real business: “Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me.” He gets them to admit they were sent for, then pre-empts their further deceit by informing them he knows that it must have been the king and queen who had done so, for the purpose of humoring him (and also, it goes without saying, for the purpose of spying on him). They are momentarily out of their depth. Then one of them gets the idea to divert Hamlet’s attention by bringing up the players with him.   “What players are they?” Hamlet asks.  “Those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city,” Rosencrantz replies. “How chances it that they travel?,” Hamlet inquires. The conversation drifts into general talk about the theater business in the (unnamed) city where this company is usually based. The players arrive soon after,  and Hamlet welcomes them heartily.

Run through that again. Moments before, Hamlet has had his suspicions confirmed that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been specially summoned to the Court by the king, who hasn’t scrupled to recruit his old friends to deceive him. His suspicions had been aroused merely by the fact of  his schoolmates’ otherwise unexplained appearance at the court. Why are his suspicions not similarly aroused when this company of players just happens to arrive at Elsinore, on the same day? His former schoolmates are inept, easily seen through. But this next batch of old acquaintances – well, they’re professional actors. They’re expert dissimulators, and they do it for hire.  Somehow Hamlet is fully at ease with them, nonetheless. He never inquires what they’re doing in Elsinore.   

Is the players’ appearance at Elsinore a free visitation, of their own inclining? Or– were they sent for? Why does Hamlet not wonder, and ask?   Might it be that the reason is just that he already knows the answer?  Might it be that they were indeed sent for, and he knows it, because it was he who had sent for them?  Why not?  These players are well known to him. He is capable of posting letters. They are itinerant players, and he is a theater-loving prince.

There’s no positive indication of any of this, in anything that he says. But nor is there anything in the text inconsistent with it. True, he seems not to know their coming, to judge from the way he responds to the news.   “What players are they?” and “How chances it that they travel?,” he asks them. But mightn’t he want to create that impression? It would be—  well, as easy as lying.  Even easier, as it would call for no definite lies- just playing dumb, for people who assume that he is.

He has just found out that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been co-opted for the purpose of deceiving him, so he can be sure they are reporting back to the king.  That would be reason enough for him to withhold information. Or he might just find it amusing to play dumb, privately mocking their knowing presumption of his ignorance.

We in the audience, witnessing this, are in no better position than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are, to know Hamlet’s mind. It’s the first that we’ve seen of him since his encounter with his father’s Ghost, some weeks or months earlier.  Perhaps Shakespeare intended to leave us in that position – to give us no inside knowledge of Hamlet’s designs beyond what would be available to R. & G.  Then again, we are in a position to see that such feigning is something that Hamlet is capable of, and that he’d think clever – and funny – to do.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would be in that position too, were they more self-aware. For Hamlet proceeds to demonstrate this, right in front of them, moments later – when Polonius comes in, bringing his news of the players’ visit.

As Polonius enters, Hamlet sees fit to murmur a jibe about him to the other two, aside, as if inviting them to conspire with him against the newcomer. He sets them up to join in a private joke against Polonius, the (nominal) point of which is to mock him for being so tiresomely predictable. “I will prophesy: he comes to tell me of the players, mark it” (355). To set up the joke, Hamlet then pretends – as Polonius comes within earshot – that the three are absorbed in discussing some past event, so that Polonius will assume that they haven’t yet gotten word of the latest. (“You say right sir, a Monday morning, ’twas then indeed,” Hamlet improvises.) When Polonius excitedly interrupts – “My Lord, I have news for you -” Hamlet then cuts him off by parroting back those same exact words – then continuing, nonsensically – “When Roscius was an actor in Rome…” – as if to imply, obscurely, that there’s not much to choose between the latest news and ancient history.  (Roscius was a famous actor of Roman antiquity.)  At which point Polonius impatiently cuts him off, with the very announcement that Hamlet had predicted. Hamlet must find this hilarious, if he’s willing to put so much energy into the joke. The other two must be delighted, too, to have been taken into his confidence, sharing the private joke. But they must be a bit befuddled as well, for why should Hamlet find this so hilarious, when Polonius’ news had been news to him just moments before?  They’d never think to consider that it might be a joke on them.

3.  Whether or not Hamlet knew of the players’ visit in advance, he shows every sign of knowing just what he wants of them,  once they arrive. Immediately after greeting the company – with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, along with Polonius, still present – he requests an impromptu declamation, asking the First Player to recite “a passionate speech.”  It turns out he has one particular speech in mind, from a play he especially likes. Here’s how he explains his request:

I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or if it was, not above once, for the play I remember pleased not the million: ’twas caviary for the general. But it was, as I received it, and others whose judgements in such matters cried in the top of mine, an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember one said there were no sallets in the lines to make it savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in’t I chiefly loved, ’twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. 

He then specifies more precisely what part of the speech he is most keen to hear, by reciting the first dozen lines himself, and directing the First Player to continue from there.

Now, this is curious. Hamlet begins by identifying the speech as one that he has heard the player recite once before. Then he gets carried off into happy reminiscences about his own and (unnamed) others’ opinions concerning the play to which the speech belongs. When he turns back from the play to the speech, he is very specific in identifying where in the play it occurs.  Amid all this talk, Hamlet never names the play, nor identifies it by its contents or author. Yet somehow he counts on the First Player to understand what play he’s talking about, when he indicates a particular episode within it. So he must assume that  his ostentatiously oblique comments about the play’s merits and reception conveys all the information required for the Player to understand the reference. There must be some private allusion involved in his cryptic mention of the “others whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of” his own, and the “one” who praised it so floridly. He may be alluding to persons known to the players, recognizable from these opinions. Or, perhaps he’s alluding to the players themselves– it migtht be, that he’s teasingly reminding the players of their own praise of the play.  Either way – there has to be some kind of private joke intended.

Consider a few further details, and see if we might perhaps catch the joke. Hamlet begins by telling the First Player, “I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or if it was, not above once, for the play I remember pleased not the million.” The speech has been spoken in Hamlet’s presence.  (Note the suppressed preposition: was the speech spoken to Hamlet? For him?)    He professes uncertainty as to whether the play had ever been performed, due to its unpopularity – notwithstanding the praise it received by the true cognoscenti. In what capacity had Hamlet heard the speech spoken? How came he to care so greatly for the play’s merits, in the face of its popular failure, as to cherish in memory what praise it received? How is it that Hamlet is so familiar with a speech from this play that was never acted (or acted not above once), that he’s able to recite a dozen lines at a stretch? Here’s one possibility, consistent with all of these facts: he wrote it himself.

Well, why not? Somebody had to write it.  If the author were Hamlet, then all of these circumstances would make sense.  It would explain how Hamlet is able to recite the first dozen lines without difficulty.  It would also account for the player’s ease in reciting so lengthy a speech (from a play that had been performed no more than once). If Hamlet had written the speech, the player might well have thought to rehearse it, prior to coming to Elsinore. (Hamlet is a prince, after all.)  The joke in Hamlet’s long-winded deference to others’ esteem for the play’s merits would then be comprehensible, too, as an exercise in mock self-deprecation.  (Note the bit about “cunning and modesty.”)  He might be teasingly recalling this very actor’s flattering judgment of himself.

There is no way to prove any of this, granted. I offer it only as a heuristic, as one possible explanation for details otherwise easy to miss. Hamlet speaks of the play in a manner consistent with the hypothesis, and we’re in no position to know any further. We are  no more than half-comprehending observers  to Hamlet’s interactions with the players, not knowing anything of his prior dealings with them, and not being privy to whatever the inside allusions pass unstated in their exchanges.

If this is our epistemic situation in relation to the unnamed Aeneas play, then just the same can be said with respect to that other play that Hamlet brings up, this time by name, later on in this same conversation: The Murder of Gonzago –  also known as The Mousetrap.