Shakespeares Dissolution of Boundaries B

Dignity, Democracy, Diversity
29th World Congress of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and
Social Philosophy (IVR) - University of Lucerne, 7 -13 July 2019
Special Workshop: Justice and Revenge
Shakespeare’s dissolution of boundaries between Justice and Revenge

in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark1
Herbert Covre Lino Simão 2
Carlo Fabrizio Campanile Braga3
Dedicated to Prof. Dr. Tercio Sampaio Ferraz Jr.
Il miglior fabbro4
ABSTRACT. This paper aims to demonstrate the dissolution of boundaries between Justice an
Revenge in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. It is intended to reflect about our own powers of judgment
and possible angles of Justice and Revenge, considering the philosophical background of Hamlet’s
thought, the ontological nature of his acts, the narrative construction of the play according the due
process of law (clause 39 of Magna Charta), as the play within the play legitimates by procedure the
search of a proof of King Claudius’ guilty. The theoretical analysis of the cunning dogmatic
(dramatic) reason of Hamlet allows him to weaken social tensions, neutralizes pressures, turn into
abstract the conflict, defined in legal terms, interpretable and decidable, making bearable his final act
– the execution of King Claudius –, and provides conditions to consider it an act of Justice.
KEY-WORDS Justice. Revenge. Cunning Dogmatic (Dramatic) Reason. Literature. Hamlet.
Shakespeare.
SUMMARY: Introduction. Special Workshop: Justice and Revenge. Understanding Shakespeare.
Shakespeare, our contemporary. Act 1 – The play and the facts. Scene 1. The tragedy as philosophy
and Hamlet as philosopher. Scene 2. About the common sense of a revenge play. Scene 3.
Remembering the facts. Scene 3.1. The King Hamlet is dead. Scene 3.2. Gertrude and Claudius get
married. Scene 3.3 Claudius is elected King, instead Hamlet. Act 2 – Scene 1. Hamlet’s perception
of reality about the facts. Scene 1.1. The wicked speed of the marriage. Scene 1.2 Incestuous
marriage. Scene 1.3. The stolen crown. Act 3 – Scene 1. The King is charged of murder. Scene 2.
Brief let me be: introducing a formal accusation: Hamlet’s father’s ghost. Act 4 – Scene 1. The
cunning dogmatic (dramatic) reason of Hamlet: the play within the play, the proof and the decision.
Scene 2. The delay of Hamlet: in search of a proof. Scene 3. Magna Charta and due process of law.
Scene 4. The cunning dogmatic (dramatic) reason. Scene 5. Confession and motivation. Act 5 –
Scene 1. Sentencing to death: justice or revenge? Scene 2. Judgement and sentencing. Scene 3.
Justice and revenge. Final Scene: Conclusion. Acknowledgments. References.
1
Working Paper presented at 29th World Congress of the International Association for Philosophy of
Law and Social Philosophy (IVR), at University of Lucerne, on July, 11th, 2019. The Special Workshop
‘Justice and Revenge’ was a proposal from Prof. Dr. Tercio Sampaio Ferraz Jr.
Professor of Philosophy of Law at ESMAGIS – Escola Superior da Magistratura e Mato Grosso do Sul
2
and INSTED – Instituto Avançado de Ensino Superior e Desenvolvimento Humano, Brazil.

herbertcovre@linosimao.com.br. WhatsApp 55 67 992570533.
3
Professor at ESAP/PGE-MS. Escola Superior da Advocacia Pública da Procuradoria-Geral do
Estado/MS. Brazil. carlofabrizio@gmail.com WhatsApp 55 67 992591950.
4
T. S. Eliot dedicated his poem The Waste Land to Ezra Pound, who helped him to edit the book. The
verse reminds the purgatory Canto (117, XXVI), from The Divine Comedy, of Dante Alighieri: “Il
miglior fabbro del parlare materno”. Dante evoke Arnaut Daniel of Riberac (1150-1210). In Eliot, T. S.
Obra Completa. Volume I. Poesias. São Paulo : Arx, 2004, p. 137. We want to express our special
acknowledgment to Prof. Tercio Sampaio Ferraz Jr., for many years of education – bildung – he provided
to us. The authors gratefully share the acknowledgement with Sônia Macedo de Mendonça Sampaio
Ferraz, organizer of Witch Beach Seminar of Philosophy of Law, in the House of Ataraxia, at Ilhabela,
São Paulo, Brazil.
1
SHAKESPEARE, L’HOMME OCÉAN
“Il y a des hommes océans, en effet.

Ces ondes, ce flux et ce reflux, ce va-et-vient terrible, ce bruit de tous les
soufflés, ces noirceurs et ces transparecences, ces végétations propres au gouffre, cette
démagogie des nuées en plein ouragan, ces aigles dans l’écume, ces merveilleux levers
d’astres répercutés dans on ne sait quell mystérieux tumult par des millions de cimes
lumineuses, têtes confuses de l’innombrable, ces grandes foudres errantes qui semblent
guetter, ces sanglots énormes, ces monstres entrevus, ces nuits de ténèbres coupées de
rugissements, ces furies, ces frénésis, ces tourmentes, ces roches, ces naufrages, ces
flottes qui se heurtent, ces tonnerres humains mêlés aux tonnerres divins, ce sang dans
l’abîme;
puis ces graces, ces douceurs, ces fêtes, ces gaies voiles blanches, ces
bateaux de pêche, ces chants dans le fracas, ces ports splendides, ces fumes de la terre,
ces villes à l’orizon, ce bleu profound de l’eau et du ciel, cette âcreté utile, cette
amertume qui fait l’assainissement de l’univers, cet âpre sel sans lequel tout pourrirait;
ces colères et ces apaisements, ce tout dans un, cet inattendu dans l’immuable, ces vaste
prodige de la monotonie inépuisablement variée, ce niveau après ce bouleversement, ces
enfers et ces paradis de l’immensité éternellment émue, cet infini, cet insondable, tout
cela peut être dans un esprit,
et alors cet esprit s’appele genie, et vous avez Eschyle, vous avez Isaïe,
vous avez Juvénal, vous avez Dante, vous avez Michel-Ange, vous avez Shakespeare,
et c’est la meme chose de regarder ces âmes ou de regarder l’Océan.”
Victor Hugo5
5
HUGO, Victor. William Shakespeare. Paris: Flammarion, 1973, p. 38. “Há, de fato, homens-oceano.
Essas ondas, esse fluxo e refluxo, esse vaivém terrível, esse barulho de todos os sopros, essas negruras e
essas transparências, essas vegetações características dos golfos, essa demagogia das nuvens negras em
plena borrasca, essas águias na espuma, essas maravilhosas ascensões de astros repercutidas em não sei
que tumulto misterioso por milhares de cimos luminosos, cabeças confusas do inumerável, esses grandes
raios errantes que parecem espreitar, esses soluços enormes, esses monstros vislumbrados, essas noites de
trevas cortadas por rugidos, essas fúrias, esses frenesis, essas tormentas, essas rochas, esses naufrágios,
esses aguaceiros que se chocam, essas trovoadas humanas misturadas com as trovoadas divinas, esse
sangue no abismo; depois essas graças, essas doçuras, essas festas, essas alegres velas brancas, esses
barcos de pescas, esses cantos no estrondo, esses portos esplêndidos, esses fumos da terra, essas cidades
no horizonte, esse azul profundo da água e do céu, esse amargor útil, essa amargura que faz o saneamento
do universo, esse áspero sal sem o qual tudo apodreceria; essas cóleras e esses apaziguamentos, esse todo
em um, esse inesperado no imutável, esse vasto prodígio da monotonia inesgotavelmente variadas, esse
equilíbrio após essa reviravolta, esses infernos e esses paraísos da imensidão eternamente emocionada,
esse infinito, esse insondável, tudo isso pode estar num espírito, e então esse espírito se chama gênio, e
temos Ésquilo, temos Isaías, temos Juvenal, temos Dante, temos Miguel Ângelo, temos Shakespeare, e é a
mesma coisa contemplar esses homens e contemplar o Oceano.” Hugo, Victor. William Shakespeare.
Londrina: Campanário, 2000, p. 16. Daniel Sibony explain how and why the french master wrote an essay
about Shakespeare: “Prenez l’essai de Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, très peu lu aujourd’hui. Hugo
s’y explique avec…le genie; avec quelques génies démesurés comme Dante, Homère, Lucrèce, Isaïe et
Shakespeare. C’est écrit en contrepoint à la traduction que son fils, François-Victor, lors de l’exil à
Guernesey, faisait des trente-six pieces de Shakespeare. On imagine les longues veillées d’hiver où
l’océan tout proche jette ‘ses noirs sanglots’…le fils se battant au corps à corps avec le grand Will, Victor
jetant sur le papier sa centaine de vers quotidiens, mais force de s’expliquer avec ce genie écrasant sous
lequel son fils pliait…” In Sibony, Daniel. Avec Shakespeare. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1988, p. 7.
2
INTRODUCTION
SPECIAL WORKSHOP: JUSTICE AND REVENGE
The law is reason, it is intellect, and it is spirit.

Hence, perhaps, the expression: spirit of the law
and the teaching of the Roman Celsius: scire
leges non hoc est, verba earum tenere, sed vim
ac potestatem (knowing the laws is not to
understanding its words, but its strength and
power).
Tercio Sampaio Ferraz Jr.6
The Special Workshop on Justice and Revenge give us the opportunity to

share this paper - that is not an academic work in the strict sense - and demonstrate the
dissolution of boundaries between Justice and Revenge in Shakespeare’s play The
Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
We choose Shakespeare, and most specifically Hamlet, due to our

imperfect humanity, as once said Allan Bloom: “Men may live more truly and fully in
reading Plato and Shakespeare than at any other time, because then they are
participating in essential being and are forgetting their accidental lives. The fact that this
kind of humanity exists or existed, and that we can somehow still touch it with the tips
of our outstretched fingers, makes our imperfect humanity, which we can no longer
bear, tolerable.” 7
It is intended to reflect about our own powers of judgment and possible

angles of Justice and Revenge, considering the philosophical background of Hamlet’s
thought, the ontological nature of his acts, the narrative construction of the play
according the rule of law and the play within the play working as due process of law.
6
FERRAZ JR., Tercio Sampaio. On Sense and Sensibility in Legal Interpretation. Rechtstheorie 42
(2011), Berlin, 143. In Portuguese: “A lei é razão, é intelecto, é espírito. Daí, talvez, a expressão: espírito
da lei e o ensinamento romano de Celsus: scire leges non hoc est, verba earum tenere, sed vim ac
potestatem (saber as leis não é conhecer-lhes as palavras, porém a sua força e seu poder). Ferraz Jr.,
Tercio Sampaio. Interpretação Jurídica: interpretação que comunica ou comunicação que se interpreta? In
Vilém Flusser e Juristas. São Paulo: Noeses, 2009, p. 21.
7
BLOOM, Allan. The Closing of American Mind. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987, p. 380. “Os
homens podem viver de forma mais verdadeira e plena lendo Platão e Shakespeare do que em qualquer
outra época, porque estão participando do ser essencial e esquecendo sua existência acidental. O fato de
este tipo de humanidade existe ou haver existido e de podermos, de certa maneira, tocá-la com a ponta
dos dedos torna suportável o imperfeito universo que já não conseguimos tolerar.” Bloom, Allan. O
Declínio da Cultura Ocidental. São Paulo: Best Seller, 1989, p. 395.
3
The theoretical analysis of the play provides conditions to assure that the
delay of Hamlet to execute the revenge commanded by the ghost of his father –
performing at court a play in which a king is murdered by his brother – secures the
necessary proof to consider an act of justice, not only revenge, the ultimate Hamlet’s
action in the play.
The proposal of the Special Workshop by Professor Tercio Sampaio

Ferraz Jr., particularly encouraging theoretical analysis of cases from art pieces has led
us into a very important question about legal interpretation: “...how can one make the
law understood through sensitivity without distorting its rationality?”. 8 Or, in other
terms: “how is it possible for humans to be rational and sensitive at the same
time?...Understand the laws with reason and obey them with emotion? And vice
versa.”9
UNDERSTANDING SHAKESPEARE
Un nouvel essai sur Shakespeare? Par pudeur,

par pitié…non. Bien que la pléthore des écrits
sur lui prouve surtout qu’il est une source
intarissable, d’écriture et d’autre chose; une
source de vie, disons.
Daniel Sibony10
Victor Hugo considered Shakespeare a sower of dazzling

wonders: “Shakespeare, c’est la fertilité, la force, l’exubérance, la mamelle gonflée, la
coupe écumante, la cuve à plein bord, la séve par excès, la lave en torrent, les germes en
tourbillons, la vaste pluie de vie, tout par milliers, tout par millions, nulle reticence,
nulle ligature, nulle économie, la prodigalité insensée et tranquille du créateur.” 11
8
(2011), Berlin, 143. In Portuguese: “Como, porém, fazer compreender a lei mediante a sensibilidade sem
deturpar-lhe a racionalidade? Idem, ibidem p. 21.
9
(2011), Berlin, 144. In Portuguese: “Como é possível para o ser humano, ser racional e sensível ao
mesmo tempo?...Compreender leis com a razão e obedecer a elas com emoção?” FERRAZ JR., Tercio
Sampaio. Moses Und Aron: música e libreto de Arnold Schoenberg. In Direito, Cultura pop e cultura
clássica. Escola de Direito da Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Rio de Janeiro: Direito Rio, 2015, p. 199.
10
SIBONY, Daniel. Avec Shakespeare – Éclat et passion en douze pièces. Paris: Grasset, 1988, p. 7. In a
philosophy congress, share the same anxiety of this french philosopher and psychologist, talking about
Shakespeare.
11
HUGO, Victor. William Shakespeare. Paris: Flammarion, 1973, p. 180-181. “Shakespeare é a
fertilidade, a força, a exuberância, a mama cheia, a taça espumante, a cuba transbordando, a seiva em
excesso, a lava em torrente, os germes em turbilhões, a vasta chuva de vida, tudo aos milhares, tudo aos
milhões, nenhuma reticência, nenhuma ligadura, nenhuma economia, a prodigalidade insensata e
tranquila do criador.” In Hugo, Victor. William Shakespeare. Londrina: Campanário, 2000, p. 163.
4
The first lesson everyone who wants to try to understand Shakespeare
must follow, is exactly what said Oscar Wilde, when he wrote about The Critic as
Artist:
He who desires to understand Shakespeare truly must understand the

relations in which Shakespeare stood to the Renaissance and the
Reformation, to the age of Elizabeth and the age of James;…he must know
the materials that were at Shakespeare’s disposal, and the method in which he
used them, and the conditions of theatric presentation in the sixteenth and
seventeenth century, their limitations and their opportunities for freedom, and
the literary criticism of Shakespeare’s day, its aims and modes and
canons…and so learn Shakespeare’s true position in the history of European
drama and the drama of the World. 12
What more can one write about Shakespeare that has not already been
written? His lines of every poem or play have already been analysed. So, probably
nothing new under the sun! But we still try, thinking like Anthony Burgess:
And yet each age, perhaps even each decade, can find some new aspect of
a great writer, simply because, being great, no one age, no one person
can see all of him. The twentieth-century Shakespeare is different from the
nineteenth-century Shakespeare; the Shakespeare of the 1970s is different
from the Shakespeare of the 1960s. So it will go on as long as civilisation
lasts; and every new aspect of Shakespeare will be as true as any other. 13
The novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, celebrating the 400 years of
Shakespeare’s death (2016), wrote: “Todo está en Shakespeare, su época y la nuestra, lo
que hay en ellas de idéntico y de diferente, la grandeza de la literatura y los milagros
que el arte realiza en la vida de las gentes, así como la manera en que la vida de los
humanos destila al mismo tiempo felicidad y desgracia, dolor y alegría, pasión, traición,
heroísmo y vileza.” 14
Allan Bloom assures that Shakespeare did not consider himself the
legislator of mankind, but: “Shakespeare presents the depths of souls as no man has ever
done, and through his divine insight we can catch sight of the difficulties which stand in
the way of human brotherhood – difficulties which are real and cannot be done away
with by pious moralizing.” 15
12
WILDE, Oscar. The Critic as Artist (1891). Apud CRYSTAL, David & CRYSTAL, Ben. The
Shakespeare Miscellany. London: Penguin Books, 2005, p.
13
BURGESS, Anthony. English Literature. London: Longman, 1974, p. 73.
14
VARGAS LLOSA, Mario. El gran teatro del Mundo. In
https://elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/18/opinion/1455785746_259593.html. Access Feb. 5, 2019.
15
BLOOM, Allan. Giants and Dwarfs – Essays 1960 – 1990. New York: Touchstone Books, 1991, p. 67.
“Shakespeare desce às profundezas da alma humana como nenhum outro homem fez, e por meio de sua
percepção divina podemos vislumbrar as dificuldades que atravessam o caminho da irmandade humana –
dificuldades que são reais e não podem ser eliminadas com moralismos pios.” In Bloom, Allan. Gigantes
e Anões. Ensaios 1960-1990. São Paulo: Editora Best Seller, 1990, p. 88.
5
Last, (but) not least16, the importance of the language in Shakespeare’s
plays. Specifically talking about the use of prose and verse in Hamlet, Barbara
Heliodora, probably the most important Brazilian critic and translator of The Bard of
Avon, says: “How can one deny the significance of the change between the two forms
when Hamlet’s supposed madness always appears in prose, but all his soliloquies and
dialogues with Horatio are in verse, in order to show the spectator that he is not mad?” 17
To understand how Shakespeare used his imagination to transform his

life into his art, Stephen Greenblatt18 said it is important to use our own imagination.
That’s what we want to do proposing the dissolution of boundaries between justice and
revenge in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
SHAKESPEARE, OUR CONTEMPORARY
…Hamlet, est aussi la tragédie de l’homme

contemporain de Shakespeare, la tragédie
politique de l’humanisme de la Renaissance.
Jan Kott19
To demonstrate how contemporary Hamlet is, let us remember a story

recounted by the brilliant thinker of ideas, Isaiah Berlin20. In the middle of 40’s and
beginning of 50’s he was working at British Embassy in Moscow. During his instructive
stay, he met Russian writers, among then, Anna Akhmatova and Boris Pasternak.
Writing his personal impressions, Isaiah Berlin says he never kept a

diary, and his account is based on what he remembered, or recollected. For this reason
he says his memory is not always reliable witness of facts or events. He recalls that
Pasternak was steeped in Shakespeare, particularly dissatisfied with his translation of
Hamlet. Pasternak would have said: “I have tried to make Shakespeare work for me, but
it has not been a success.”21
16
Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.(Act III, Sc. I,189)
17
HELIODORA, Barbara. My Reasons for Translating Shakespeare. Ilha do Desterro. Florianópolis, nº
36, 1999, p. 225. She also talks about translating Shakespeare: “The classic example of the impossibility
of translation comes from the dialogue between Hamlet and the ‘st Gravedigger in Act 5, sc.1: a whole
sequence is based on the fact that of someone telling ‘to lie’, In English, has the two meanings of
something lyind down and of someone telling a lie. There is nothing in the world that can find a
completely satisfactory translation for this, as well as for many other such puns to be found throughout
most of Shakespeare’s words.” Idem, ibidem, p. 226.
18
GREENBLATT, Stephen. Will in the World. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016, p. 14.
19
KOTT, Jan. Shakespeare notre contemporain. Verviers, Belgique: Gerad & Co., 1965, p. 58.
20
BERLIN, Isaiah. Personal Impressions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 156.
21
Idem, ibidem, p. 178.
6
Isaiah Berlin remembers that once he was introduced by Pasternak to the
most celebrated of Soviet Actors, Livanov (whose real name was Polivanov):
Livanov was very enthusiastic about Pasternak’s translation of Hamlet, and,

some years ago, wished to produce it and act in it himself. He obtained
official permission for this and rehearsals began. During this period he was
invited to one of the regular banquets in the Kremlin, over which Stalin
presided. It was Stalin’s habit, at a certain point in the evening, to walk from
table to table, exchanging greetings and offering toasts. When he approached
Livanov’s table, the actor asked him: ‘Iosif Vissarionovich, how should one
play Hamlet? He wanted Stalin to say something, anything; he could then
carry this away under his arm and use it. As Pasternak put it, if Stalin had
said ‘You must play I in a mauve manner’, Livanov could tell his actors that
what they were doing was not mauve enough, that the Leader had distinctly
ordered it to be mauve; he, Livanov, had alone grasped exactly what the
leader meant, and the director and everyone else would then be bound to
obey. Stalin stopped and said: ‘You are an actor? At the Arts Theatre? Then
you should put your question to the artistic director of the theatre; I am no
expert on theatrical matters.’ Then, after silence, ‘However, since you have
put the question to me, I shall give you my answer: Hamlet is a decadent
play and should not be performed at all.’ The rehearsals were broken off
on the next day. There was no performance of Hamlet until well after
Stalin’s death.”22
Michael Neill, writing about a modern perspective of Hamlet, confirms

this curious story:
The great Russian director Vsevolod Meyerhold used to maintain that ‘if all
the plays ever written suddenly disappeared and only Hamlet miraculously
survived, all the theathers in the world would be saved. They could all put on
Hamlet and be successful.’ Perhaps Meyerhold exaggerated because of his
frustration – he was prevented from ever staging the tragedy by Soviet
dictator Joseph Stalin, who apparently thought it too dangerous to be
performed – but Meyerhold’s sense of Hamlet’s extraordinary breadth of
appeal is amply confirmed by its stage history. 23
Curiously, as annotated by Tucker Brooke and Jack Randall Crawford: “Many of the
most artistic and remarkable of the modern productions of Hamlet have been produced
in Russia, where it has had a special vogue, beginning with the novel and historic
presentation designed by Gordon Craig for the Art Theatre in Moscow. Nor is there
any indication that the popularity of this play upon the stage has dimmed. It still
remains the test of the summit of achievement for the art of a tragic actor.” 24
22
BERLIN, Isaiah. Personal Impressions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 178-179.
23
NEILL, Michael. Hamlet: A Modern Perspective. In SHAKESPEARE, William. Hamlet. Edited by
Barbara A. Moway and Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009, p. 307.
24
BROOKE, Tucker and CRAWFORD, Jack Randall. Introduction to The Tragedy of Hamlet. In
SHAKESPEARE, William. The Yale Shakespeare. The Complete Works. New York: Barnes & Noble
Books, 1993, p. 978.
7
When the first collected volume of Shakespeare’s works was published
in 1623, the well-known first Folio of Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, Ben Jonson,
‘beloved’ friend of Shakespeare wrote a dedicatory poem, To the Memory of My
Beloved, the Author Mr. William Shakespeare:
Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Tri’umph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom All scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age but for all time!25
According to Allan Bloom, Shakespeare seems to be the mirror of nature

and presents human beings just as they are: “But for things that are permanent in us, the
existence of which is best proved by Shakespeare’s effect on those who read him
seriously in all ages and countries, one must return over and over again to his plays.” 26
For Harold Bloom the playwriters and novelists will continue revisiting
Hamlet:
Hamlet’s wake, his name, has not been wounded but wondrous: Ibsen and
Chekhov, Pirandello and Beckett have rewritten him, and so have the
novelists Goethe, Scott, Dickens, Melville, and Joyce. Playwriters and
novelists will be compelled to continue revisiting Hamlet, for reasons that I
suspect have more to do with our horror of our own consciousness
confronting annihilation than with our individual addictions to guilt and to
grief. 27
According to Harold Bloom Shakespeare is in the center of western
canon, or better, he is the canon. The author about all others authors try to follow, in
this case they try to escape from the anguish of authenticity, one of the many legacies of
Shakespeare.28
We must remember, as said Michael Neill29, in the four centuries since it

was first staged, Hamlet has never lost its theatrical appeal, remaining today the most
frequently performed of Shakespeare’s tragedies.
25
Apud SHAKESPEARE, William. The Complete Works. General Editors Stanley Wells and Gary
Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. XLV.
26
BLOOM, Allan. Shakespeare on Love and Friendship. Chicago and London: The University of
Chicago Press, 2000, p. 143. “No entanto, para as coisas que temos permanentemente em nós e cuja
existência é provada da melhor maneira pela influência que Shakespeare exerce em quem o lê com
seriedade em todas as épocas e países, precisamos recorrer repetidas vezes a suas peças.” BLOOM, Allan.
Amor & Amizade. Tradução J. E. Smith Caldas. São Paulo: Mandarim, 1996, p. 349.
27
BLOOM, Harold. Hamlet, Poem Unlimited. New York: Riverhead Books, 2004, p. 120.
28
BLOOM, Harold. The Western Canon. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1994, p. 50.
29
8
Being an author for all time, still bothering political leaders – dictators,
presidents, general-secretaries, prime-ministers –, Shakespeare is our contemporary!”30
ACT 1. THE PLAY31 AND THE FACTS
SCENE 1. THE TRAGEDY AS PHILOSOPHY…AND HAMLET AS

PHILOSOPHER
…le Hamlet de Shakespeare est un philosophe

Victor Hugo32
Between 1601 and 1609 Shakespeare produced a series of tragedies that

have placed him on the pinnacle of English drama, in special Hamlet, the first play of
the period.
A Prince, who is an intellectual and honest man, full of goodness and

love who is not perfect and makes mistakes. He also faces problems with no simple
answers and therefore cannot decide what to do.
Perhaps it is what makes him an ordinary man, like us, or, as Victor
Hugo once said:
30
According to Jan Kott, Shakespeare had problem with another political leader of his own time:
“Elizabeth n’avait pas permis que l’on jouât Richard II. Le théâtre représentait les rois et les empereurs
comme autant de tyrans, de perjures, semant atrocités et violences. Chaque souverain l’acceptait, estimant
que cela ne le concernait en rien. Si les autres sont des tyrans, lui est roi par la volonté de Dieu et du
people. Représenter les souverains sous les traits de tyrans était une tradition sanctionnée par les siècles.
Il n’en allait pas de même pour la scène du détrônement. Cela, il était impossible de l’autoriser. Le théâtre
montrait comment on décapitait les rois; mais c’était à un roi que l’on coupait la tête, le corps sans tête
restait le corps d’un roi. C’était là également une scène sanctionnée par la tradition. Il n’y avait qu’une
chose qu’il était impossible de souffrir: qu’un roi cessât d’être un roi. La decapitation d’un roi est une
infraction physique au principe d’obéissance, mas le détrônement est la repudiation du principe lui-même,
la repudiation de toute la théologie. La repudiation de la métaphysique. Si cela a lieu, le ciel restera vide
une fois pour toutes.” In Kott, Jan. Shakespeare notre contemporain. Verviers, Belgique: Gerad & Co.,
1965, p. 333.
31
G. B. Harrison writes that in all Shakespeare’s texts there are difficulties of Reading and interpretation
due to errors in printing. Specifically about editing Shakespeare, he says: “…Modern scholars, as the
result of the exact study of Elizabethan texts, have established certain principles:…(b) The next most
important text must be that printed directly from manuscript. The earliest surviving text is therefore the
most reliable, unless either a later text is based on a better original, or a later edition was revised by the
author. This sometimes happened with Shakespeare’s plays. The first edition of Hamlet was a very bad
pirated Quarto which came out in 1603; the second Quarto, dated 1604, was probably printed from
Shakespeare’s own manuscript, and is thus the more reliable.” (HARRISON, G. B. Introducing
Shakespeare. London: Penguin, 1991, p. 194).
32
HUGO, Victor. William Shakespeare. Paris: Flammarion, 1973, p. 197.
9
Hamlet. On ne sait quell effrayant être complet dans l’incomplet. Tout, pour
n’être rien. Il es prince et demagogue, sagace et extravagant, profound et
frivole, homme et neutre. Il croit peu au sceptre, bafoue le trône, a pour
camarade un étudiant, dialogue avec les passants, argumente avec le premier
venu, comprend le people, méprise la foule, hait la force, soupçonne le
succès, interroge l’obscurité, tutoie le mystère…Il parle literature, recite des
vers, fait un feuilleton de théâtre, joue avec des os dans un cimitière,
fourdroie sa mere, venge son père, et termine le redoubtable drame de la vie
et de la mort par un gigantesque point d’interrogation.33
The play as a meditation upon human fragility in confrontation with

death, according to Harold Bloom, it competes only with the world’s scriptures34. About
the astonishing gift of awareness of Hamlet, Bloom says that: “What matters most about
Hamlet is his genius, which is for consciousness itself. He is aware that his inner self
perpetually augments, and that he must go on overhearing an ever-burgeoning self-
consciouness.” 35
That’s what we can understand listening to Hamlet:
«...What a piece of work is a man !

How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how
express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god!
The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals – and yet to me, what is this
quintessense of dust?»36
Victor Hugo writes about the great philosophical subjects of the play:
meditation, will, indecision, consciousness:
Dans Hamlet, la volonté est plus asservie encore; elle est garrottée par la
méditation préalable, chaîne sans fin des indécis. Tirez-vous donc de vous-
même! Quel noeud gordien que notre reverie! L’esclavage du dedans, c’est
là l’esclave. Escaladez-moi cette enceinte: songer! Sortez, si vous pouvez, de
cette prison: aime! L’unique cachot est celui qui mure la conscience.37
33
HUGO, Victor. William Shakespeare. Paris: Flammarion, 1973, p. 195. “Hamlet. Desconhecido e
assustador ser completo no incompleto. Tudo, para não ser nada. Ele é príncipe demagogo, sagaz e
extravagante, profundo e frívolo, homem e neutro. Crê pouco no cetro, achincalha o trono, tem por
camarada um estudante, dialoga com os transeuntes, argumenta com o primeiro que vê, compreende o
povo, despreza a multidão, odeia a força, desconfia do sucesso, interroga a obscuridade, tuteia o
mistério...Fala literatura, recita versos, faz um folhetim de teatro, brinca com ossos num cemitério,
fulmina a mãe, vinga o pai, e termina o temível drama da vida e da morte com um gigantesco ponto de
interrogação.” In HUGO, Victor. William Shakespeare. Londrina: Campanário, 2000, p. 178-179.
34
35
36
SHAKESPEARE, William. Hamlet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 131.
37
HUGO, Victor. William Shakespeare. Paris: Flammarion, 1973, p. 192. “Em Hamlet, a vontade é ainda
mais escravizada; está amarrada pela meditação prévia, corrente sem fim dos indecisos. Livrai-vos, pois,
de vós mesmos! Que nó górdio é o nosso devaneio! A escravidão interior, essa é que é a escravidão.
10
The definition of the tragedy as philosophy is provided by Victor Hugo,
with a high degree of precision in a brilliant prose, almost poetry:
Dans cette tragédie, qui est en même temps une philosophie, tout flotte,
hésite, atermoie, chancelle, se décompose, se disperse et se dissipe, la pensée
est nuage, la volonté est vapeur, la resolution est crépuscule, l’action soufflé
à chaque instant en sens inverse, la rose des vents gouverne l’homme. Oeuvre
troublante et vertigineuse où de toute chose on voit le fond, où il n’existe
pour la pensée d’autre va-et vient que du roi tué à Yorick enterré, et où ce
qu’il y a de plus réel, c’est la royauté représentée par un fantôme et la gaieté
représentée par une tête de mort. Hamlet est le chef-d’oeuvre de la tragédie
rêve.38
Concerning Hamlet’s delay, his duty, Victor Hugo enhances the
skepticism of the Prince:
Hamlet a vu son père mort et lui a parlé; est-il convaincu? Non, il hoche la
tête. Que fera-t-il? Il n’en sait rien. Ses mains se crispent, puis retombent. Au
dedans de lui les conjectures, les systemes, les apparences monstrueuses, les
souvenirs sanglants, la vénération du spectre, la haine, l’attendrissement,
l’anxiété d’agir et de ne pas agir, son père, sa mere, ses devoirs en sens
contraire, profound orage. L’hésitation livide est dans son esprit.39
The French writer comes with a meaningful statement about the
Bardo: “L’oeuvre capital de Shakespeare n’est pas Hamlet. L’oeuvre capital de
Shakespeare, c’est tout Shakespeare.”40
We also can talk about a dialect of order and disorder in the play and
ethical metamorphosis of Hamlet, taking Jean Paris words in account:
Ces metamorphoses que Shakespeare décèle dans l’homme comme dans la

nature aboutissent, en son oeuvre, à toute une dialectique de l’ordre et du
désordre. Mais à quelle réalité cette philosophie pouvait-elle mieux convener
qu’a la politique à l’histoire? Ici le poète recontrait enfin une tragédie
constante, une matière vive à la mesure de sa parole. 41
Escalai esta muralha: sonhar! Escapai, se puderdes, desta prisão: amar! A única masmorra é a que mura a
consciência.” In Hugo, Victor. William Shakespeare. Londrina: Campanário, 2000, p. 175.
38
HUGO, Victor. William Shakespeare. Paris: Flammarion, 1973, p. 196. “Nessa tragédia, que é ao
mesmo tempo uma filosofia, tudo flutua, hesita, adia, vacila, se decompõe, se dispersa e se dissipa, o
pensamento é nuvem, a vontade é vapor, a resolução é crepúsculo, a ação sopra a todo instante em sentido
inverso, a rosa dos ventos governa o homem. Obra perturbadora e vertiginosa em que se vê o fundo de
todas as coisas, em que não existe para o pensamento outro vaivém que não o do rei morto a Yorick
enterrado, e em que o que há de mais real é a realeza representada por um fantasma e a alegria
representada por uma caveira. Hamlet é a obra-prima da tragédia-sonho.” In HUGO, Victor. William
Shakespeare. Londrina: Campanário, 2000, p. 179.
39
HUGO, Victor. William Shakespeare. Paris: Flammarion, 1973, p. 198. “Hamlet viu o pai morto e falou
com ele; está convencido? Não, ele balança a cabeça. Que fará? Não sabe. Suas mãos se crispam, mas
caem novamente. Em seu âmago as conjecturas, os sistemas, as aparências monstruosas, as lembranças
sangrentas, a veneração ao espectro, o ódio, o enternecimento, a ansiedade de agir e de não agir, o pai, a
mãe, seus deveres em sentido contrário, profunda tormenta. A hesitação lívida está em seu espírito.” In
HUGO, Victor. William Shakespeare. Londrina: Campanário, 2000, p. 181.
40
HUGO, Victor. William Shakespeare. Paris: Flammarion, 1973, p. 199.
41
PARIS, Jean. Shakespeare. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1981, p. 141. In Portuguese: “Essas metamorfoses
que Shakespeare descobre no homem como na natureza conduzem, em sua obra, a toda uma dialética da
11
Writing about the birth of Shakespeare’s work, Guy Boquet highlights
the philosophical background of Elizabethan England: “Shakespeare vécu les inquietude
d’une époque em quête d’un nouvel humanisme au sein d’une société en mouvement.
Dramaturge élizabéthain, il reflète toute une polyphonie métaphysique, du christianisme
en cours de mutation régénératrice à un néoplatonisme teinté d’occultisme, jouant tle ou
tel thème selon des nécessités proprement dramaturgiques.”42
Allan Bloom considers Shakespeare our only link with the classic and the
past, through a survey of human spirit:
…which is what Shakespeare’s plays taken together are, instructs us in the
complex business of knowing what to honor and what to despise, what to
love and what to hate. Shakespeare’s moment was great one because all free
from the perpetual conflicts that threaten man’s happiness, nevertheless the
stage on which the richness and fullness of human potential could be acted
out.43
Kenji Yoshino says that Hamlet represents the intellectual tribe in the
most canonical text of Western imaginative literature: “Prince Hamlet is undeniably an
intellectual, a student at the University of Wittenberg whose ‘inky cloak’ (I.2.77)
swaddles him not just in melancholy but in ‘[w]ords, words, words (2.2.189).” 44
Barbara Heliodora outlines Shakespeare’s ability to explore and deeply

understand the human processes as individuals or members of social groups45. She also
ordem e da desordem. E a que realidade poderia ser mais conveniente tal filosofia senão a da política e da
história? Nelas o poeta encontraria enfim uma tragédia constante, um tema vivo à altura de suas
palavras.” PARIS, Jean. Shakespeare. RJ: José Olympio, 1992, p. 143.
42
BOQUET, Guy. Théâtre et société: Shakespeare. Paris: Flammarion, 1969, p. 52. In Portuguese:
“Shakespeare viveu a inquietude de uma época em busca de um novel humanismo no seio de uma
sociedade em movimento. Dramaturgo elisabetano, ele reflete toda uma polifonia metafísica, do
cristianismo em curso de mutação regeneradora para um neoplatonismo tinto de ocultismo, representando
este ou aquele tema, segundo necessidades propriamente dramatúrgicas. Tradução Berta Zemel. São
Paulo: Perspectiva, 1989, p. 54.
43
BLOOM, Allan. Shakespeare on Love and Friendship. Chicago and London: The University of
Chicago Press, 2000, p. 139. “O exame do espírito humano, que constitui o conjunto das peças de
Shakespeare, nos instrui na tarefa complexa de saber o que honrar e o que desprezar, o que amar e o que
detestar. O momento de Shakespeare foi grandioso porque todas as opções estavam abertas e era possível
imaginar um futuro que poderia existir, se não livre dos conflitos eternos que ameaçam a felicidade do
homem, ao menos o palco onde a riqueza e a plenitude do potencial humano podiam ser representadas”.
BLOOM, Allan. Amor & Amizade. SP: Mandarim, 1996, p. 345.
44
YOSHINO, Kenji. A Thousand Times More Fair. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2012, p. 185.
In Portuguese: “O princípe Hamlet é, inegavelmente, um intelectual, um estudante da Universidade de
Wittenberg cuja ‘capa sombria’ (I.2.77) envolve-o não somente de melancolia, mas de ‘palavras,
palavras, palavras’ (2.2.189).” Tradução Fernando Santos. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2014, p. 201.
45
HELIODORA, Barbara. Por que Ler Shakespeare. Rio de Janeiro: Globo, 2008, p. 8. “Se for
necessário apresentar motivos pelos quais se deva ler Shakespeare hoje em dia, todos eles poderão ser
encontrados em sua capacidade de investigar e compreender a fundo os processos do ser humano, tanto
em sua condição de indivíduo como de integrante do grupo social.”
12
highlights that Shakespeare changed a simple revenge tragedy into a profound reflection
of human condition.46
As we know, besides there are more questions than answers about

Shakespeare’s readings and education, there is no doubt about his philosophical
references: Seneca, Machiavelli among other authors. Concerning Montaigne, we
certainly can assure he has read John Florio’s translation into English of The Essays47.
Probably, Shakespeare knew Florio personally.48
Montaigne’s influence is widespread around Shakespeare’s plays: King

Lear, The Tempest, Richard III, Henry V, All’s Well that Ends Well, Twelfth Night.
Stephen Greenblatt, with accuracy, writes that
Scholars have seen Montaigne’s fingerprints on many other Works by

Shakespeare, whether in the echoing of words or ideais. When Hamlet
exclaims to his mother, ‘Ecstasy? My pulse as your doth temperately keep
time,’ (III.iv.130-31), Shakespeare may have picked up a hint from
Montaigne’s ‘during his ecstasy, he seemed to have neither pulse nor breath’
from ‘Of the Force of Imagination’. And Polonius’s ‘This above all: to thine
own self be true’ may owe something to ‘That above all, he be instruceted to
yield, yea to quit his weapons unto truth’ from ‘Of the Institution of
Education of Children’49
In Montaigne, we read in the essay That to Philosophize Is to Learn How

to Die: ‘Life in itself is neither good nor evil; it is the place of good or evil
according as you prepare it for them’50. (I.20/I.19). In Hamlet, we can hear
Montaigne’s echoe: ‘For there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it
so. (II, ii.244-45).
46
HELIODORA, Barbara. Shakespeare. O que as peças contam. Rio de Janeiro: Edições de Janeiro,
2014, p. 224. “A tragédia shakespeariana, no entanto, ficou famosa por ter transformado uma simples
história de vingança em uma grande e profunda reflexão sobre a condição humana.”
47
The Essayes on Morall, Politike and Millitarie Discourses of Lo[rd]: Michaell de Montaigne (Printed at
London: by Val. Sims for Edward Blount, 1603). This version of the essays was known by Shakespeare
and his contemporaries in England.
48
Stephen Greenblatt says that: “Shakespeare quite possibly knew Florio, who was twelve years his
senior, personally. English-born, the son of Italian Protestants refugees, Florio was on friendly terms with
such writers as Ben Jonson and Samuel Daniel. In the early 1590s, he was a tutor to the Earl of
Southampton, the wealthy nobleman to whom Shakespeare dedicated two poems in 1593 and 1594. Bui it
is no simply a likely personal connection that accounts for the fact that Shakespeare read Montaigne in
Florio’s translation. The translation seemed to address English readers of Shakespeare’s time with
unusual directness and intensity.” In GREENBLATT, Stephen & PLATT, Peter G. Shakespeare’s
Montainge. The Florio Translation of the Essays. New York: New York Review Books, 2014, p. X.
49
GREENBLATT, Stephen & PLATT, Peter G. Shakespeare’s Montaigne. The Florio Translation of the
Essays. New York: New York Review Books, 2014, p. XXXI.
50
Idem, ibidem, p. 347.
13
Stoicism and skepticism are among the influences of Montaigne.
Perhaps, the most important is the literary genre of essay, that we can see with all his
power in the soliloquies. In special, the most widely known soliloquy uttered by Hamlet
(Act 3, Scene 1, 56-87 - The nunnery scene), when he contemplates life and death:
To be, or not to be, that is the question -

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.51
Further on, in the same act (Act 3, Scene II, 167-196), we have the Player
King speaking an extraordinary philosophical speech, probably written by Hamlet, the
philosopher, when he changed The Murder of Gonzago into The Mousetrap:
I do believe you think what now you speak,

But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity;
Which now like fruit unripe sticks on the tree,
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
51
14
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
So think thou wilt no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.52
Definitively, the tragedy play is a philosophical play and the Prince

Hamlet, with his powerful mind and personality, values and judgments, Renaissance wit
and skeptic, reader of Montaigne, is undoubtedly a philosopher!
SCENE 2. ABOUT THE COMMON SENSE OF A REVENGE PLAY
Hamlet is part of Shakespeare’s revenge upon

revenge tragedy, and is of no genre. Of all
poems, it is the most unlimited.
Harold Bloom53
Hamlet has always been considered a revenge play. In fact, it inaugurates

the rupture of Shakespeare with the historical pieces and the opening a new cycle of
tragic pieces. Traditionally, critics have been analysed Hamlet as a tragedy where the
just revenge of the offended hero is expected, as a result of several violations of his
honor: the murder of his father, the King; the incestuous and swift marriage of his
mother to the King's brother, his uncle and, finally, the usurpation of the throne, with
the succession of the King by his brother, what prevented Hamlet from assuming the
crown.
52
53
15
This context makes revenge desirable, and even taken for granted,
natural. However, several elements in the plot and the character of the characters make
the analysis much more complex than the mere conclusion by the act of revenge.
It is important to note that in primitive societies revenge could be taken

as one of the meanings of justice. The Lex Talionis, written in the Code of Hammurabi,
established the retribution of the crime with the practice of the same act. As Aristotle
said “Some think that reciprocity is without qualification just, as the Pythagoreans said;
for they defined justice without qualification as reciprocity.”54
In the play the ghost demands Hamlet for revenge (Act I, scene V): “So
art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear.” (...) “Revenge his foul and unnatural
murder.” And Hamlet answers:
Haste, haste me to know it, that with wing as swift

As meditation or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge.
The revenge act does not happen as expected as will be demonstrated

ahead. Hamlet’s delay to retaliate King's death and the usurpation of the throne are key
points to understand the dissolution between justice and revenge.
We must consider that Elizabethan society in which Shakespeare lives

and writes is quite different from the primitive Lex Talionis societies. A period of full
ascension of the Kingdom of England, where the mere accomplishment of an automatic
act of revenge would not be admitted in that civilizing moment, nor with the complexity
of the conception of modern man that was forming in that period of history.
Furthermore, Hamlet is the most human of Shakespeare’s characters, and

the play, probably is one of the most famous in the world. Four hundred years after its
first presentation it is alive today with all its problems and, according to Jan Kott:
Hamlet contient bien des problems: la politique, la violence et la morale, la

querelle sur l’unité de signification de la théorie et la pratique, sur les fins
dernières et le sens de la vie; c’est une tragédie d’amour, une tragédie
familiale, nationale, philosophique, eschatologique et métaphysique. Tout ce
que vou voudrez! E c’est en plus une bouleversante étude pshychologique. Et
une intrigue sanglante, un duel, un grande carnage. On peut choisir. Mais il
faut savoir dans quell but et pour quelle raison choisir. 55
54
ARISTOTLE. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by W. D. Ross, Batoche Books: Kitchener, 1999, p. 79
55
KOTT, Jan. Shakespeare notre contemporain. Verviers, Belgique: Gerad & Co., 1965, p. 75.
16
Michael Neill is another specialist that sees more than revenge in the
play: “Over the sensationalism and rough energy of a conventional revenge plot is
placed a sophisticated psychological drama whose most intense action belongs to the
interior world of soliloquy.” 56
Reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet we see that anyone can be brave, even the
weakest one, and we always we can learn something about ourselves when passing
through inevitable difficult times.
If we consider all the world’s a stage, then it is a bad stage with no

promise of happiness in a story plenty of murder, death, betrayal, true and false
madness. Besides that, there is hope for all the men and women, these merely players.
Germaine Greer, former professor of English and Comparative Studies at

Warwick University, tells: “The play is a guided tour through a lying world, the
foundations of which slip and slide, so that we doubt not only what we see and hear but
our own powers of judgement and action.”57
SCENE 3. REMEMBERING THE FACTS
O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story.
Hamlet, 5.2.323-2858
We must remember the facts of the play.
Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote about the importance of memory

in Hamlet’s play:
‘Adiós, adiós, recuérdame.’ La frase con que el fantasma del padre de Hamlet
aparece y desaparece, casi simultáneamente, es el gatillo de la tragedia.
Hamlet duda porque recuerda. Actúa porque recuerda. Y representa porque
recuerda. Hamlet es el memorioso. Donde todos olvidam o quisieran olvidar,
él se encarga de recordar y de recordarles a todo el deber de ser o no ser. 59
56
57
GREER, Germaine. Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press,2002, p. 61.
58
59
FUENTES, Carlos. Shakespeare. In En Esto Creo. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 2002, 247.
17
Fuentes also shows how a monarchy depends on memory:
Una monarquía vive de la tradición rememorada porque en ello reside su

legitimación. Hamlet se subleva, precisamente, contra la suplantación de la
legitimidad por el rey Claudio, hermano asesino del padre de Hamlet.
Memoria, sucesión, legitimidad, son el verdadero, ‘desnudo puña’ que
Hamlet emplea al precio de la ‘quietud’ de la muerte. 60
Daniel Sibony, french philosopher and psychologist, talks about

Hamlet’s wish to remember: Hamlet veut tellement se rappeler qu’il fait ‘table rase’ de
sa mémoire il veut se l’arracher peut-être, il met à plat sur son calepin la trace à ne pas
traduire, à ne pas trahir secret absolut.”61 He also stress the beginning of the play:
“Hamlet commence sur le désastre où déclenche une mémoire, une mémoire à vif,
effarée, plus que souvenir ou remembrance.”62
That’s the reason why we must put order in facts, so they can be
understood in terms of a judicial process, a criminal process. This is our purpose: a
theoretical analysis of the play, as a case of justice and revenge, with an approach that
lead us to consider due process of law as part of Hamlet’s acts.
Remembering Horatio’s last words on the play, we want to seek the truth
of Hamlet’s ultimate act. All this we can truly deliver! The rest is not silence!
SCENE 3.1 The King Hamlet is dead
In the beginning of the play, we know why Hamlet is in sorrow by the

death of his father, the King. The Ghost remembers him the alleged cause of his death:
…Now Hamlet, hear.

‘Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me.
Ghost, I.5.34-3663
60
Idem, ibidem.
61
SIBONY, Daniel. Avec Shakespeare – Éclat et passion en douze pièces. Paris: Grasset, 1988, p.211.
“Hamlet deseja profundamente lembrar-se de que faz ‘tábula rasa’ de sua memória, talvez queira até
mesmo arrancá-la de si, e coloca integralmente em seu livro de notas o vestígio para não ser traduzido,
para não trair o segredo absoluto.” In SIBONY, Daniel. Na Companhia de Shakespeare. Rio de Janeiro:
Imago, 1992, p. 238.
62
Idem, ibidem, p. 212. “Hamlet começa com o desastre onde se desencadeia uma memória, uma
memória em carne viva, assombrada, mais do que lembrança ou reminiscência.” In SIBONY, Daniel. Na
Companhia de Shakespeare. Rio de Janeiro: Imago, 1992, p. 239.
63
18
In the castle, Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, asks him to abandon his
mourning and overcome his grief:
Good Hamlet cast thy knighted colour off,

And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not forever with thy vailèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know’st ‘tis common, all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Gertrude, 1.2.68-7264
Hamlet, in his turn keeps the dejected behavior of the visage:
Seems madam? Nay it is, I know not seems.

‘Tis not alone my inky cloack, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play,
But I have that within which passes show –
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
Hamlet, 1.2.76-8665
The King Claudius tries to convince Hamlet to throw to earth the

unprevailing woe, because to persevere in obstinate condolement is a course of impious
stubbornness, an unmanly grief and it is incorrect to heaven:
’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father;
But you must know, your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obserquious sorrow; but to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness, tis unmanly grief,
It show a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschooled.
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie, tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died today,
‘Tis must be so.
Claudius, 1.2.87-10766
64
65
19
SCENE 3.2 Gertrude and Claudius get married
A marriage fastly than usual:
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death

The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
Yet so far hat discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourserlves.
Therefore our sometimes sister, now our queen,
Th’imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as ‘twere with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
Taken to wife; nor have we herein barred
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along – for all, our thanks.
Claudius, I.2.1-1667
SCENE 3.3 Claudius is elected King, instead of Hamlet
Besides the monarchy system was elective, it was common to transform

into hereditary one. In Denmark Kingdom Hamlet had the hope to be elected King,
what didn’t happen when his father dyed and his uncle married to his mother, being
elected King.
[He]…Popped in between th’election and my hopes.’

Hamlet, 5.2.6568
About the succession of the throne, Phillip Edwards notes that “The
monarchy being elective, not hereditary, Claudius, the most important member of an
electoral college, here gives his ‘voice’ to Hamlet as his heir.” 69
…and think of us
As a father, for let the world take note
You are the most immediate to our throne,
Claudius, 1.2.107-109
66
SHAKESPEARE, William. Hamlet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p.86-87.
67
SHAKESPEARE, William. Hamlet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 83-84.
68
69
EDWARDS, Philip. In Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997,
p. 87, note on line 109.
20
ACT 2. HAMLET’S PERCEPTION OF REALITY ABOUT THE FACTS
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Marcellus, I.4.90.70
Until now, we talked about the death of the King, but there is no mention
of his alleged murder. Besides that, Hamlet still has other reasons to criticize his mother
and the King Claudius.
The wicked speed of Claudius and Gertrude’s marriage
The speed of the marriage…less than two months….less than

one month…and Hamlet is still counting:
…That it should come to this!
But two months dead – nay not so much, not two
So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughtly – heaven and earth,
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on, and yet within a month –
Let me not think on’t; frailty, thy name is woman –
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father’s body
Like Niobe, all tears, why she, even she –
O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer – married with my uncle,
My father’s brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules – within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes,
She married. Oh most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets.”
Hamlet, I.2.137-15771
According to J. Anthony Burton, Gertrude has legal reasons for her

‘wicked speed’ marriage:
Under the prevailing law, a widow was given a dower, a one-third interest in
the real property of her deceased husband. She would hold this share until her
death, at which point it would descend to her male heir. To give her time to
settle on her third, she was given a ‘quarantine’, a forty-day period in which
she could remain on her husband’s state. Applying early modern English law,
Hamlet Sr. died. But if Gertrude married during this forty-day period, she
70
SHAKESPEARE, William. Hamlet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p.105.
71
21
could have made a more plausible claim to keep all her lands jointly with her
new husband.”72
Kenji Yoshino considers Claudius’ nefarious purpose to disinheriting

Hamlet, using the law, but he also seems to believe in love when he analyses this point:
“Given that Claudius and Gertrude are in love, it also made sense for them to marry
speedily to quiet any uncertainty about Claudius’s title to Denmark’s throne and lands.
The elimination of this uncertainty was not just in Claudius interest, but in Denmark’s.”
73
The behavior of Claudius and Gertrude, eliminates any Hamlet’s doubts

about them…
Incestuous marriage
This is another question that must be considered in Hamlet’s point of

view. Marriage to a brother’s wife was explicitly forbidden by the Church, according to
the Book of Common Prayer (see the ‘Table of Kindred and Affinity). The Ghost
remembers Hamlet about it:
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.
O Hamlet, what a falling off was there,
From me whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage, and to decline
Upon a wrench whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine.
But virtue as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of have,
So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage.
Ghost, I.5.42-5774
72
BURTON, J. Anthony. An Unrecognized Theme. In Hamlet: Lost Inheritance and Claudiu’s Marriage
to Gertrude. The Shakespeare Newsletter 50 (2000-2001): 71-82. Apud YOSHINO, Kenji. A Thousand
Times More Fair. New York: Ecco, HarperCollins, 2012, p. 194.
73
YOSHINO, Kenji. A Thousand Times More Fair. NY: Ecco, HarperCollins, 2012, p. 195.
74
SHAKESPEARE, William. Hamlet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 107-108.
22
In Shakespeare’s time, this charge – that a brother who marries his dead
brother’s widow commits incest –, was topical, according to Yoshino. He reports that:
King Henry VIII had married his older brother Arthur’s widow, Catherine of
Aragon. Under prevailing ecclesiastical law, such marriages were broadly
prohibited as incestuous. As it states in Leviticus, ‘Thou shalt not uncover the
nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness.’ And further:
‘if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath
uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.’ However,
Deuteronomy states an exception to this rule: ‘If brethren dwell together, and
one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry
without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go unto her, and take her
to him to wife.’ Because Arthur and Catherine had no children, Henry easily
acquired permission from Pope Julius II to employ the Deuteronomy
exception to the Leviticus rule. Henry could argue that he was not only
permitted but obligated to marry his brother’s widow under what the Mosaic
Law termed ‘levirate marriage.’
To be sure, Claudius’s case is easily distinguishable from Henry VIII’s.
Claudius’s brother has left a son, namely Hamlet. Claudius cannot avail
himself of the exception in Deuteronomy. 75
Thinking about Hamlet’s perception of reality, we give reason to legal

scholar Jason Rosenblatt76, when he says that Claudius’s attempt to fob off his marriage
as legitimate contributes to Hamlet’s depression because it negates Hamlet’s existence.
The stolen crown
When Claudius married Hamlet’s mother, he also took for him the
crown, and, according to Hamlet’s perception, stole and put in his pocket.
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,

That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
And put it in his pocket.
Hamlet, 3.4.99-10177
Until now, only considering three facts – marriage, incest and the crown-,
Hamlet has enough reasons to despise the King Claudius, without wishing his dead! But
all changes with the ghost’s charge of murder.
75
YOSHINO, Kenji. A Thousand Times More Fair. New York: Ecco, HarperCollins, 2012, p. 195.
76
ROSENBLATT, Jason. Aspects of the Incest Problem in Hamlet. Shakespeare Quarterly 29 (1978):
349-364. Apud YOSHINO, Kenji. A Thousand Times More Fair. NY:Ecco, HarperCollins, 2012, p. 196.
77
23
ACT 3 THE KING IS CHARGED OF MURDER
Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and

count myself a king of infinite space – were it
not that I have bad dreams.
Hamlet78
Brief let me be: introducing a formal accusation: Hamlet’s father’s Ghost
After three appearences, the Ghost finally meets Hamlet and starts to
convince the Prince about the murder and his demands for revenge.
Ghost - I am thy father’s spirit,

…
If thou didst ever thy dear father love –
Hamlet - O God!
Ghost - Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Hamlet - Murder?
Ghost - Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
(1.5.9,23-28)79
A formal accusation is presented when the Ghost describes how the

murder happened:
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,

My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigour it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine,
And a most instant tetter barked about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched;
Ghost I.5.59-7580
According to Brazilian Law Scholar and specialist in Shakespeare’s legal

matters, José Roberto de Castro Neves: “If Claudius was the King’s murderer, Hamlet
could fairly revenge his father killing his uncle, and that would be an act of justice.” 81
78
79
80
24
ACT 4. THE CUNNING DOGMATIC (DRAMATIC) REASON OF HAMLET:
THE PLAY WITHIN A PLAY, THE PROOF AND THE DECISION
I’ll have grounds more relative than this.

The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch
the conscience of the king.
Hamlet (2.2.556-58)
Hamlet has a problem. He knows the facts. Specially, the unnatural

murder of his father. But the only witness is the Ghost. “There is no court before which
Hamlet can bring his case”82. The Law is the King Claudius. There’s no possibility of a
trial. He thinks. He needs to decide what to do.
At this point, we would like to bring to reflection an outstanding Legal

Hermeneutic Theory that enable us to understand Hamlet’s delay and allow us to sustain
that his final act is an act of Justice, not revenge.
We are talking about the cunning dogmatic reason presented by

Professor Tercio Sampaio Ferraz Jr.83 a few years ago. Achieving maturity in his
philosophical thought, he published the first draft of his theory in a full professor thesis
– The Social Function of Legal Dogmatics, by the end of 1970’s. He developed the
theory in his masterpiece of 1988, Introduction to Law.
Professor Tercio Sampaio Ferraz Jr. explains his hermeneutic theory and
the cunning dogmatic reason:
Thus, this cunning dogmatic reason works in the service of the weakening of
social tensions, as it counteracts/neutralizes the pressure exerted by the
problems of distribution of power, resources and scare benefits. And this is
done by turning them into abstract conflicts, that is, defined in legal terms
and in terms legally interpretable and decidable. 84
81
CASTRO NEVES, José Roberto. Medida por Medida: O Direito em Shakespeare. 5. ed. revista e
ampliada. Rio de Janeiro: Edições de Janeiro, 2016, p. 245. In Portuguese: “Se Cláudio fosse o assassino
do rei, Hamlet poderia justamente vingar o pai e matar seu tio, pois isso seria uma medida de justiça.”
82
ALEXANDER, Peter. Shakespeare: London: Oxford University Press, 1964, p. 224.
83
FERRAZ JR., Tercio Sampaio. Função Social da Dogmática Jurídica. São Paulo: Revista dos
Tribunais, 1980. Reedição. São Paulo: Max Limonad, 1998. 2. ed. São Paulo: Atlas, 2015. The main idea
of his thought about his theory of social function of dogmatics may be found in chapter 5 of his
masterpiece Introdução ao Estudo do Direito – técnica, decisão, dominação. 10. ed. São Paulo: Atlas,
2018. The book was published in Spain: Introducción al Estudio del Derecho. Madrid: Marcial Pons
Ediciones Jurídicas y Sociales S.A., 2009. 349 p.
84
(2011), Berlin, 144. In Portuguese: “Essa astúcia da razão dogmática põe-se, assim, a serviço do
enfraquecimento das tensões sociais, na medida em que neutraliza a pressão exercida pelos problemas de
distribuição de poder, de recursos e de benefícios escassos. E o faz, ao torná-los conflitos abstratos, isto é,
definidos em termos jurídicos e em termos juridicamente interpretáveis e decidíveis.” In Ferraz Jr., Tercio
Sampaio. Introdução ao Estudo do Direito. 10. ed. São Paulo: Atlas, 2018, p. 270.
25
Hamlet has to weaken social tensions involving all parties concerned to
his father’s death; he needs to neutralize the pressure exerted by the problems of
distribution of power. At this point, Professor Tercio Sampaio Ferraz Jr.85 says:
In this sense, hermeneutics provides a kind of neutralization of social

conflicts by projecting them into a harmonious dimension – the world of
rational legislature – in which, in theory, all become decidable. But, this way,
it does not eliminate the contradictions, it just makes them bearable.86
Thus, turning tensions and pressures into an abstract conflict, definable in

legal terms, interpretable and the most important, decidable, we can deal with the
contradictions - that are no all eliminated in this process - but are bearable.
This is what Hamlet does with the play within the play.
The delay of Hamlet: in search of a proof
About the delay of Hamlet to avenge his father, Miles and Pooley
consider that: “Hamlet delays, apparently to get proof. At length, by producing at court
a play in which a king is murdered by his brother he secures the necessary proof.”87
According to Jan Kott, Hamlet really needs to know if his father was
killed. He cannot trust blindly in the Ghost: “Il cherche des preuves plus convaincantes;
c’est pourquoi il organize une épreuve à l’aide du test psychologique qu’est la mise en
scène du crime.”88
85
(2011), Berlin, 144. Also: “Desse modo, a hermenêutica possibilita uma espécie de neutralização dos
conflitos sociais, ao projetá-los numa dimensão harmoniosa – o mundo do legislador racional – no qual,
em tese, tornam-se todos decidíveis. Mas, assim, ela não elimina as contradições, apenas as torna
suportáveis.” In Ferraz Jr., Tercio Sampaio. Introdução ao Estudo do Direito. 10. ed. São Paulo: Atlas,
2018, p. 271.
86
(2011), Berlin, 144. Also: “Desse modo, a hermenêutica possibilita uma espécie de neutralização dos
conflitos sociais, ao projetá-los numa dimensão harmoniosa – o mundo do legislador racional – no qual,
em tese, tornam-se todos decidíveis. Mas, assim, ela não elimina as contradições, apenas as torna
suportáveis.” In FERRAZ JR., Tercio Sampaio. Introdução ao Estudo do Direito. 10. ed. São Paulo:
Atlas, 2018, p. 271.
87
MILES, Dudley and POOLEY, Robert C. Literature and Life in England. Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas,
Palo Alto, N.J.: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1948, p. 107.
88
KOTT, Jan. Shakespeare notre contemporain. Verviers, Belgique: Gerad & Co., 1965, p. 77. In
Portuguese: “Ele quer saber se, realmente, seu pai foi assassinado. Não pode confiar no fantasma - em
nenhum fantasma. Busca provas mais convincentes, organizando para isso o teste psicológico que é a
encenação do crime.” Kott, Jan. Shakespeare nosso contemporâneo. SP:Cosac&Naify, 2003, p. 73.
26
Hamlet needs a proof of King Claudius’s guilty. He is worried about
being abused by a devil-ghost or the devil himself taking advantage on him through the
Ghost:
… The spirit I have seen

May be a devil – and the devil hath power
T’assume a pleasing shape. Yea, and perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me.
Hamlet 2.2.551-5689
So, Hamlet delays the execution of his father-ghost order.
As seen above, Hamlet’s delay to decide is not result of a doubt only, but
a doubt qualified by the necessity of justification for his act. With the play ‘Mousetrap’
Hamlet tries not only to embarrass Claudius to confess his crime, but mainly to seek
proof and justification to start the punishment of his father's murderer. In one word, he
needs to discover the truth.
For Aristotle, the phronesis, or prudence, is one of the five ways to

discover the truth. According to him, a man is ready to deliberate well when he is able,
by a process of reasoning and calculation, to arrive at what is best for man in matters of
practice.
A rational process to achieve a good decision. "Prudence deals with

human affairs, and with matters that admit deliberation: for the prudent man’s special
function, as we conceive it is to deliberate well...”90. Prudence is concerned with
practice.
We can understand Aristotle writing about the decision-making process:

“...when we say that prudent man must deliberate well, good deliberation in this case
will be correctness in judging what is expedient to that end of which prudence has a true
conception.”91
Kenji Yoshino, the author of a very sensitive book about Shakespeare’s

legal themes, highlights that: “The central question of Hamlet is why the prince takes so
long to avenge his father’s murder. Psychoanalysts, literary critics, and philosophers
89
90
ARISTOTLE. The Nicomachean ethics. Trans. by F. H. Petkotters. 5. ed. London: 1893, p. 191/192.
91
ARISTOTLE. The Nicomachean ethics. Trans. by F. H. Peters. 5. ed. London: 1893, p. 198.
27
have all offered their answers, many of which reflect their general explanations for
procrastination.” 92
As we can see, depending on the science branch adopted, we may have

one answer to justify Hamlet’s delay. Professor Yoshino offers a legal point of view:
Following suit as a legal scholar, I contend that Hamlet’s delay arises from an
intellectual commitment to perfect justice. Faced with a terrible injustice, he
is forced to correct it himself because, as in Titus Andronicus, his adversary
controls the state. Hamlet certainly has the ingenuity to correct that injustice
immediately. However, he bides his time because he wishes to secure not
only justice but poetic justice. With respect to Claudius, he arguably attains
that perfect justice.93
According to Yoshino, “Rather than relying on the ghost, Hamlet looks

for an alternative means to determine Claudius’s guilty. This takes time, but only
because the means have not materialized.” 94
The play within the play is Hamlet’s opportunity:
[Fie upon’t, foh! About, my brains. Hum, I have heard

That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul, that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ.
Hamlet 2.2.541-4795
The solution comes with a play:
I’ll have these players

Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks,
I’ll tent him to the quick. If ‘a do blench
I know my course...
Hamlet 2.2.547-5096
Hamlet wants to execute the act of punishment for the murder of his
father, but it was necessary to undo the doubt about the existence of the murder and who
was its author. The justice of the act results precisely from dispelling doubt, according
92
YOSHINO, Kenji. A Thousand Times More Fair. NY: Ecco, HarperCollins, 2012, p. 185.
93
Idem, p. 185-186.
94
Idem, ibidem, p. 197
95
96
28
one of the great moral maxims of Zarathustra: ‘When it is doubtful whether the action
you are about to perform is just or unjust, abstain from doing it.” 97
Undone the doubt, Hamlet could made justice.
Magna Charta and Due Process of Law
The due process developed in Shakespeare’s play is according to clause

39 of Magna Charta, issued in 1215: “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or
stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing
in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send other to do so,
except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.”
This clause has been changed by the statutory rendition of 1354, issued
during the reign of Edward III of England, by British monarchs as it follows: “No man
of what state or condition he be, shall be put out of his lands or tenements nor taken, nor
disinherited, nor put to death, without he be brought to answer by due process of law.”
The five acts of the play must be understood, according to due process of
law in criminal cases, as proceedings concerning a crime investigation, charge,
prosecution, trial and sentencing, necessary to legitimate by procedure the final act of
Hamlet.
The play within the play as due process of law:
A poisons him I’th’garden for’s state. His name’s Gonzago.

The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall
See anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.
Hamlet (3.2.237-239)98
CLAUDIUS What do you call the play?

HAMLET The Mousetrap. Marry how? Tropically. This play is the
Image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke’s name,
his wife Baptista. You shall see anon. ‘Tis a knavish piece of work,
But what o’ that? Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it
Touches us not. Let the galled jade winch, our withers are unwrung.
(3.2.215-220)99
97
VOLTAIRE. A philosophical dictionary. (Derived from The Works of Voltaire, A Contemporary
Version). New York: E. R. DuMont, 1901, p. 1681.
98
99
29
The King’s reaction to the play
OPHELIA the king rises.

HAMLET What, frighted with false fire?
GERTRUDE How fares may lord?
CLAUDIUS Give some light. Away!
LORDS Lights, lights, lights!
(3.2.240-245)100
Horatio, the perfect witness:
And let me speak to th’yet unknowing world

How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And in this upshot, porpuses mistook
Fallen on th’inventors’ heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.
Horatio, 5.2.358-64101
King’s confession and motivation
King Claudius can’t pray for forgiveness but he confesses his guilty and
mention means, motive and opportunity to perpetrate his crime:
Oh my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;

It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,
A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will.
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect.
Claudius 3.3.36-43102
Specifically about his motivation to kill his own brother, he says:
…But oh, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?
That cannot be, since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
Claudius 3.3.51-55103
100
101
102
SHAKESPEARE, William. Hamlet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p.171.
103
30
ACT 5. SENTENCING THE KING TO DEATH: JUSTICE OR REVENGE?
Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and

count myself a king of infinite space – were it
not that I have bad dreams.
Hamlet104
JUDGMENT AND SENTENCING
Ian McEwan, the novelist who wrote an original and magnificent book
inspired by Hamlet, published an interesting article In The Guardian, where he talked
about the law and mentioned sentencing: “Despite sentencing guidelines, there can be
no consistency in the courts, unless everyone stands before the same even-tempered
judge, as at the Day of Judgment. Perhaps this was always part of Christianity's appeal.
Until that last trump, down here in the earthly courts brilliance and fairness must live
alongside dull injustice.”105
JUSTICE AND REVENGE
To talk about Shakespeare’s dissolution of boundaries between Justice

and Revenge, we must think about a definition. Antonio Anselmo Martino says:
“Definir es, para Aristóteles, determinar los caracteres esenciales, vale decir el
contenido de un concepto descomponiéndolo en sus elementos constitutivos”.106
According to Professor Tercio Sampaio Ferraz Jr., for philosophy,

defining the concept of Justice is a very difficult task. This concept is part of an
aporethic problem, and its definition, in objective terms, is a dead-end problem, but it
makes one think107. And it's our task to think about it.
104
105
MCEWAN, Ian. The law versus religious belief. In
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/05/ian-mcewan-law-versus-religious-belief. Access
February 5, 2019. McEwan wrote Nutshell, a story of murder and deceit, considered a modern Hamlet.
106
MARTINO, Antonio Anselmo. Definiciones Legales. In WARAT, Luis Alberto & MARTINO,
Antonio Anselmo. Lenguaje Y Definicion Juridica. Buenos Aires: Cooperadora de Derecho y Ciencias
Sociales, 1973, p 69.
107
FERRAZ JR. Tercio Sampaio. Interview in NOBRE, Marcos and REGO, José Márcio. Conversas com
filósofos brasileiros. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2000, p. 272/298.
31
Celso Lafer, writing about the paradigm o Natural Law, remembers a
very well known distinction from Aristotle:
Aristóteles, en un conocido pasaje de la Retórica, establece una distinción

entre ley particular y ley común. Ley particular es la que cada pueblo se da a
sí mismo, y las normas de esa ley particular pueden ser escritas o no. Ley
común es la conforme a la naturaleza, pues existe algo que todos en cierto
modo adivinamos sobre lo que por naturaleza es justo o injusto en común,
aun cuando no haya ninguna comunidad o acuerdo.108
Norberto Bobbio, on the concept of justice as an ordering virtue writes:
From Plato onwards, the virtue of justice has been the virtue that presides
over the constitution of a whole made up of parts, and as such that entables
the parts to stay together, cum-stare, not to dissolve and not to return to
primordial chaos: and thus to constitute an order.109
This is pure Hamlet: put it in order, set it right!

It is true that one of the correspondences of the concept of justice is
revenge. The act of revenge can be the just measure of reparation of the damage and
thus indicates a kind of justice. The justice like a retaliation, according to Aristotle.
But as Nietzsche once said, the virtuous would be too clean for the filth of revenge,
punishment, reward, retribution...110
A very emblematic situation occurs if we consider the phonetic

similarity of the expressions referring to feeling of revenge and to do justice in the
German language, as referred, again, by Nietzsche: “Ach, wit übel ihnen das Wort
‘Tugend’ aus den Munde läuft! Und wenn sie sagen: ‘Ich bin gerecht’, so klingt es
immer gleich wie: ‘Ich bin gerächt”111. In our translation: “Oh, the word "virtue" is
bad on their lips. And when they say, "I am righteous," it always sounds like "I am
avenged."
Richard Posner, analysing revenge as legal prototype, highlights its

influence in legal doctrines: “Vengeful feelings play an important role in the
administration of law even today. No general theory of law would be complete without
108
LAFER, Celso. La reconstrucción de los derechos humanos. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica,
1994, p. 39. In Portuguese: “Aristóteles, numa conhecida passagem da Retórica, estabelece uma distinção
dicotômica entre lei particular e lei comum. Lei particular é aquela que cada povo dá a si mesmo,
podendo as normas dessa lei particular ser escritas ou não escritas. Lei comum é aquela conforme à
natureza, pois existe algo que todos, de certo modo, adivinhamos sobre o que por natureza é justou ou
injusto em comum, ainda que não haja nenhuma comunidade ou acordo.” SP:Cia das Letras, 2015, p. 49.
109
BOBBIO, Norberto. Peace, War and International Politics. Torino: Aragno, 2007, p. 89
110
NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Also sprach Zarathustra, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1987, p. 85.
111
NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Also sprach Zarathustra, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1987, p. 86.
32
attention to revenge. It is also a theme of some of the greatest monuments of the
Western Literary tradition.”112 In addition, he demonstrates the importance and
influence of literature on Law: “Literary depictions of revenge can tell us something
about revenge adjoins or subtends, while the lawyer’s and the social scientist’s analyses
of revenge can tell us something about revenge literature – can even dispel the mystery
of Hamlet’s delay in avenging his father’s murder.”113
Professor Tercio Sampaio Ferraz Jr., in a recent interview for a Brazilian

newspaper, said:
Throughout history, western culture made a huge effort to set apart revenge
from justice, in search of rule of law. In this process, judicial branch has the
responsibility to put revenge aside, in order to reach an impartial decision
from an independent judge. That’s a simple idea: the issues concerning State
are of general interest: a person is sent to prison and starts an educational
plan for transition back into the community. There’s no revenge in this role.
But of course there’s subjectivity in society and it’s impossible to avoid it, to
suppress the desire of retribution. 114
HAMLET’S SENTENCING PHASE
The rest is silence.

Hamlet 5.2.337115
The guilty of the King Claudius is already proved. Kenji Yoshino says:
“Yet for all his alleged indecisiveness, from this point on, Hamlet never wavers with
respect to Claudius’s guilty. He has shifted from the guilt phase to the sentencing phase
of his self-created trial. He waits now only for the right moment to execute Claudius.”
116
112
POSNER, Richard A. Law & Literature. 3. ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009, p.75.
113
Idem, ibidem.
114
FERRAZ JR., Tercio Sampaio. Solução para o Rio é integrar forças; crime organizado só se combate
organizadamente. In O Estado de S. Paulo, 26 de fevereiro de 2018. In Portuguese: “Ao longo da história,
a cultura ocidental fez um enorme esforço para separar vingança da justiça. Era um empenho em busca do
Estado de Direito. Nesse processo, cabe à Justiça fazer com que a vingança seja posta de lado,
consagrando-se a imparcialidade dos juízes. A ideia é que o Estado age pelo interesse geral: o indivíduo
vai preso, deve ser reeducado. Não há nisso nada de vingança. Mas é claro que na sociedade há a
subjetividade, é impossível retirá-la do contexto, conter o desejo de retaliação.”.
115
116
33
HAMLET’S DUTY
117
Concerning Hamlet’s duty, it’s important to evoke Hannah Arendt
thought about personal responsibility in contrast to political responsibility which every
government assumes for the deeds and misdeeds of its predecessor and every nation for
the deeds and misdeeds of the past. This is the case of the Kingdom of Elsinore and the
Prince Hamlet. According to Arendt’s point of view:
…for a nation, it is obvious that every generation, by virtue of being born

into a historical continuum, is burdened by the sins of the fathers as it is
blessed with the deeds of the ancestors. Whoever takes upon himself political
responsibility will always come to the point where he says with Hamlet:
The time is out of joint: O cursed spite

That ever I was born to set it right.
This is Hamlet’s mission: to set the time aright, in other words, renew the
world, and he can does this because he arrived at one time as a newcomer in the
Kingdom which was there before him and will still be there when he is gone, when he
shall left its burden to the successor.
CONCLUSION
What I claim here is the right of every

Shakespeare-lover who has ever lived to paint
his own portrait of the man.
Anthony Burgess118
Following the lesson of Anthony Burgess, this is our right to paint the
portrait of Hamlet, not as a revenge man, but a man in search of justice for his father.
Considering that we should expect nothing less of Hamlet’s sense of

poetic justice, Yoshino assures: “…I contend that Hamlet’s delay can best be explained
by his pursuit of perfect justice. I do not think Hamlet delays because he is sexually
conflicted, weak, or nihilistic. I think he defers his revenge because he wants it to be
perfect.” 119
117
ARENDT, Hannah. Responsability and Judment. New York: Schocken Books, 2003, p. 27-28.
118
BURGESS, Anthony. Shakespeare. London: Vintage, 1996, p. 9.
119
34
He also think that is dangerous to disagree with Freud, Goethe, and
Nietzsche all at once, but, as we can see, their explanation for Hamlet’s delays seem less
plausible than his active pursuit of poetic justice offered here.
In conclusion, we consider that Hamlet’s delay is an opportunity to

legitimate by procedure of due process of law – the play within the play -, his search of
a proof of King Claudius guilty. And the cunning dogmatic (dramatic) reason of Hamlet
allows him to weak social tensions, neutralizes pressures, turn into abstract the conflict,
defined in legal terms, interpretable and decidable, making bearable his final act – the
execution of King Claudius – as an act of Justice.
We know Shakespeare didn’t go to university, but the play was written

exactly like a lawyer would do. Or a judge. Or a prosecutor. The first thing Shakespeare
did was not to kill all the lawyers, but learning from them, he wrote a play where we see
not revenge, but justice!
The play ends with Fortinbras.
Who is this young Norwegian Prince? We don’t know and Shakespeare

doesn’t tell us. The polish critic Jan Kott, making Shakespeare notre contemporain,
describe de scene:
Un grand drame s’est joué. Sur scène, il y avait eu des hommes.

Qui avaient lutté, comploté, qui s’étaient entretués.
Par amour, ils avaient commis des crimes, et par amour ils étaient devenus fous.
Ils avaient dit des choses bouleversantes sur la vie, la mort et la destinée
humaine.
Ils s’étaient dressé des embûches les uns aux autres et ils y s’étaint tombés.
Ils avaient defendu le pouvoir, ou bien s’étaient révoltés contre lui.
Ils avaient voulu redresser le monde, ou bien simplement se sauver eux-mêmes.
Tous désiraient quelque chose.
Leurs crimes memes avaient une certaine grandeur.
Et vous… qu’à present entre en scène un jeune gars vigoureux.
Qui déclare avec un séduisant sourire:
‘Débarrassez-moi de ces cadavres.
C’est moi, maintenant, qui serai votre roi.’120
120
KOTT, Jan. Shakespeare notre contemporain. Verviers, Belgique: Gerad & Co., 1965, p. 86-87.
35
After all things concerning Hamlet’s act of justice been considered, we
would like to hear Fortinbras’ speech, in the voice of polish poet, Zbignew Herbert:
Now you have peace Hamlet you accomplished what you had to
and you have peace The rest is not silence but belongs to me
you chose the easier part an elegant thrust
but what is heroic death compared with eternal watching
with a cold apple in one’s hand on a narrow chair
with a view on the ant-ill and clock’ dial
Adieu prince I have tasks a sewer project
and a decree on prostitutes and beggars
I must also elaborate a better system of prisons
since as you justly said Denmark is a prison
I go to my affairs This night is born
a star named Hamlet We shall never meet
what I shall leave will not be worth a tragedy
It is not for us to greet each other or bid farewell we live on archipelagos
and that water these words what can they do what can they do prince.121
After all, we thank you for listening to us and we just say:
Adieu, Adieu, Adieu, Remember us!
121
HERBERT, Zbignew. Elegy of Fortinbras. In https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/elegy-of-
fortinbras/. Access Feb. 4, 2019. Zibigniew Herbert (29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998), was a polish poet,
essayist, drama writer, author of plays and moralist. He was educated as an economist and a lawyer.
Herbert was one of the main poets of the Polish opposition to communism.
36
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank several people for their love, friendship, encouragement
and support during the writing of this working paper.
Herbert Covre Lino Simão wants to acknowledge: AMDG. Renata de Oliveira

Gonçalves Covre Simão: My love is as a fever, longing still. It is a wise father that
knows his own child, Luisa Oliveira Gonçalves Covre Simão. There are more things in
heaven and earth, Daniel Herbert Gonçalves Covre Simão, than are dreamt of in your
philosophy. My father’s wit - Sebastião Lino Simão - and my mother’s tongue –
Madalena Covre Simão – assist me! But, as a brother to his sister(s), show’d Bashful
sincerity and comely love: Marilda Covre Lino Simão Martim and Marcia Covre Lino
Simão Batista. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; Alexandre de Almeida,
Fábio de Sá Cesnik, Samuel Rodrigues Barbosa, Otávio Yazbek, Thiago Francisco da
Silva Brito, Paulo Thadeu Gomes da Silva, Fernando Silveira Camargo, Ruy Celso
Barbosa Florence, João Maurício Adeodato, Carlo Fabrizio Campanile Braga, Torquato
Castro Jr., José Roberto de Castro Neves, Nuria López Cabalero Suarez and Agatha
Brandão de Oliveira. Last, but not least, ESMAGIS – Escola Superior da Magistratura
de Mato Grosso do Sul and INSTED, Instituto Avançado de Ensino Superior e
Desenvolvimento Humano, which provided me the financial support.
Carlo Fabrizio Campanile Braga: to my beloved Jacqueline, Júlia and Mariana. My

friend Herbert and my masters, Tercio and João Maurício.
37
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https://elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/18/opinion/1455785746_259593.html
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Shakespeares Dissolution of Boundaries B

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Dignity, Democracy, Diversity

Shakespeare’s dissolution of boundaries between Justice and Revenge

and INSTED – Instituto Avançado de Ensino Superior e Desenvolvimento Humano, Brazil.

“Il y a des hommes océans, en effet.

SPECIAL WORKSHOP: JUSTICE AND REVENGE

The law is reason, it is intellect, and it is spirit.

The Special Workshop on Justice and Revenge give us the opportunity to

We choose Shakespeare, and most specifically Hamlet, due to our

It is intended to reflect about our own powers of judgment and possible

The proposal of the Special Workshop by Professor Tercio Sampaio

Un nouvel essai sur Shakespeare? Par pudeur,

Victor Hugo considered Shakespeare a sower of dazzling

He who desires to understand Shakespeare truly must understand the

To understand how Shakespeare used his imagination to transform his

SHAKESPEARE, OUR CONTEMPORARY

…Hamlet, est aussi la tragédie de l’homme

To demonstrate how contemporary Hamlet is, let us remember a story

Writing his personal impressions, Isaiah Berlin says he never kept a

Livanov was very enthusiastic about Pasternak’s translation of Hamlet, and,

Michael Neill, writing about a modern perspective of Hamlet, confirms

Leave thee alone for the comparison

According to Allan Bloom, Shakespeare seems to be the mirror of nature

We must remember, as said Michael Neill29, in the four centuries since it

ACT 1. THE PLAY31 AND THE FACTS

SCENE 1. THE TRAGEDY AS PHILOSOPHY…AND HAMLET AS

…le Hamlet de Shakespeare est un philosophe

Between 1601 and 1609 Shakespeare produced a series of tragedies that

A Prince, who is an intellectual and honest man, full of goodness and

The play as a meditation upon human fragility in confrontation with

That’s what we can understand listening to Hamlet:

«...What a piece of work is a man !

Ces metamorphoses que Shakespeare décèle dans l’homme comme dans la

Barbara Heliodora outlines Shakespeare’s ability to explore and deeply

As we know, besides there are more questions than answers about

Montaigne’s influence is widespread around Shakespeare’s plays: King

Scholars have seen Montaigne’s fingerprints on many other Works by

In Montaigne, we read in the essay That to Philosophize Is to Learn How

To be, or not to be, that is the question -

I do believe you think what now you speak,

Definitively, the tragedy play is a philosophical play and the Prince

SCENE 2. ABOUT THE COMMON SENSE OF A REVENGE PLAY

Hamlet is part of Shakespeare’s revenge upon

Hamlet has always been considered a revenge play. In fact, it inaugurates

It is important to note that in primitive societies revenge could be taken

Haste, haste me to know it, that with wing as swift

The revenge act does not happen as expected as will be demonstrated

We must consider that Elizabethan society in which Shakespeare lives

Furthermore, Hamlet is the most human of Shakespeare’s characters, and

Hamlet contient bien des problems: la politique, la violence et la morale, la

If we consider all the world’s a stage, then it is a bad stage with no

Germaine Greer, former professor of English and Comparative Studies at

SCENE 3. REMEMBERING THE FACTS

O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,

Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote about the importance of memory

Una monarquía vive de la tradición rememorada porque en ello reside su

Daniel Sibony, french philosopher and psychologist, talks about

SCENE 3.1 The King Hamlet is dead

In the beginning of the play, we know why Hamlet is in sorrow by the

…Now Hamlet, hear.

Good Hamlet cast thy knighted colour off,

Hamlet, in his turn keeps the dejected behavior of the visage:

Seems madam? Nay it is, I know not seems.

The King Claudius tries to convince Hamlet to throw to earth the