Date Posted:13:12:00 04/23/08 Wed Author: CS Holden Subject: Horatio and Hamlet
Given all the imitation and reciprocal violence we find in Hamlet, I wonder about the friendship between Horatio and Hamlet. I can plainly see how Hamlet models himself after Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes--well and good (or not). What, then, of Horatio, who in the dramatis personae is described as "Hamlet's friend and fellow student"? What's the difference?
Horatio is always held up as the ideal friend, perhaps because he is always there by Hamlet's side, through to the end of his life. Horatio is the friend we wish we had: always confirming, always tagging along, but never trying to usurp the model. I guess that's the key. Is Shakespeare perhaps providing a way out with the character of Horatio? Horatio knows what Hamlet knows, hears Hamlet's confessions, so to speak, and yet he refrains from participation. Why? The closest he comes, it seems to me, is when Hamlet says, "I am dead, Horatio...Horatio, I am dead" (5.2.334, 339), and Horatio speeds Hamlet's death. The "liquor" (5.2.343) he gives Hamlet could be to ease the pain of the poison, or it could be another drink from the poisoned cup. Either way, it has the air of giving Hamlet his last rites.
Further, Horatio's famous line to Hamlet implies expiation for his sins: "Good night, sweet Prince, / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest" (5.2.360-361). To Fortinbras and the Ambassador, Horatio then names violence and revenge for what they are,
So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on th' inventors' heads. Al this can I
Truly deliver. (5.2.381-387)
There, we have the play, and we also have Horatio's reading of the events. He highlights the "accidental," "casual," mistook" nature of Hamlet's (in)action, but I wonder if he refers specifically to the whole of Hamlet's revenge saga, or merely the catastrophe that results in 5.2.
In any case, Horatio's a great case study of positive mimesis, though one could make the case that he ought to have done more to help or curb his friend. Thoughts?
