Hamlet

Hamlet

Also known as Prince of Denmark · young Hamlet · Hamlet the Dane

Prince of Denmark and son of the late King Hamlet and Gertrude. He is Claudius’s nephew and stepson, kills Claudius and dies from a poisoned wound; before dying, he names Fortinbras as his successor and asks Horatio to tell his story.

Claudius

Also known as King of Denmark · the King

Hamlet’s uncle, who became king and married Gertrude after the death of Hamlet’s father. He murdered King Hamlet and plots Hamlet’s death; his poisoned cup kills Gertrude, and Hamlet kills him with Laertes’s poisoned weapon.

Ghost

Also known as the late king · Hamlet’s father · King Hamlet

The spirit of Hamlet’s father, the former King of Denmark. He tells Hamlet that Claudius murdered him and urges Hamlet to avenge his death.

Gertrude

Also known as the Queen · Queen of Denmark

Queen of Denmark, Hamlet’s mother, and Claudius’s wife. She drinks from Claudius’s poisoned cup and dies, warning Hamlet that she has been poisoned.

Polonius

Also known as Lord Chamberlain

A senior courtier and father of Laertes and Ophelia. He spies on Hamlet and is accidentally killed by him while concealed behind an arras.

Laertes

Polonius’s son and Ophelia’s brother. Seeking revenge for their deaths, he conspires with Claudius to kill Hamlet; their duel leaves both men fatally wounded, and Laertes reveals the plot before dying.

Ophelia

Polonius’s daughter and Laertes’s sister. After her father’s death she becomes distraught and later drowns; Hamlet declares at her grave that he loved her.

Horatio

Hamlet’s friend and fellow student from Wittenberg, and his trusted confidant. He survives the final events and promises to tell Hamlet’s story.

Fortinbras

Also known as young Fortinbras · Prince of Norway

The young Prince of Norway, son of the former Fortinbras whom King Hamlet defeated. He returns from Poland after Hamlet’s death and claims rights to the Danish kingdom, having received Hamlet’s dying endorsement.

Voltemand

A Danish courtier sent with Cornelius as an ambassador to Norway. He reports that young Fortinbras has agreed not to attack Denmark.

Cornelius

A Danish courtier sent with Voltemand as an ambassador to Norway.

Rosencrantz

A courtier and old friend of Hamlet. Claudius and Gertrude summon him to discover what is troubling Hamlet, and Claudius sends him with Hamlet to England; he dies there after Hamlet changes the royal commission.

Guildenstern

A courtier and old friend of Hamlet. Claudius and Gertrude summon him with Rosencrantz to discover what is troubling Hamlet, and Claudius sends him with Hamlet to England; he dies there after Hamlet changes the royal commission.

Marcellus

An officer who has seen the Ghost on guard at Elsinore. He and Barnardo bring Horatio to witness it and tell Hamlet what they saw.

Barnardo

A sentry at Elsinore who has seen the Ghost on watch. He tells Horatio about its appearances.

Francisco

A soldier on guard at Elsinore who hands his watch over to Barnardo.

Osric

A courtier who delivers Claudius’s challenge and wager for a fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes. He witnesses the fatal duel and its aftermath.

Reynaldo

Polonius’s servant, whom Polonius sends to Paris to spy on Laertes.

Players

A company of actors who arrive at Elsinore and perform a play arranged by Hamlet to test Claudius’s reaction.

A Gentleman

Also known as Courtier

A courtier who reports Ophelia’s distraught behavior to Gertrude and later announces Laertes’s return with an armed crowd.

A Priest

The priest who conducts Ophelia’s funeral and explains that her burial rites are limited because her death was doubtful.

First Clown

Also known as First Gravedigger

A gravedigger who debates the law and theology of Ophelia’s burial with the Second Clown. He identifies Yorick’s skull to Hamlet.

Second Clown

Also known as Second Gravedigger

A gravedigger who debates Ophelia’s burial with the First Clown.

A Captain

A Norwegian captain who tells Hamlet that Fortinbras’s troops are marching against Poland for a small and largely worthless patch of land.

English Ambassadors

Ambassadors from England who arrive at the Danish court. Their First Ambassador reports that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead and that their mission came too late.

Old Norway

Also known as the King of Norway · Fortinbras’s uncle

The elderly, bedridden King of Norway and uncle of young Fortinbras. He orders his nephew to stop preparations against Denmark and gives him permission to lead the troops against Poland.

Old Fortinbras

Also known as Fortinbras’s father

The former Norwegian king and father of young Fortinbras. King Hamlet defeated him in combat, costing him lands that his son now seeks to recover.

Pyrrhus

Also known as Pyrrhus of Aeneas’ tale

A figure in the actors’ recitation of Aeneas’s tale who kills Priam during the fall of Troy.

Aeneas

A figure in the story recited by the First Player, who tells Dido about Pyrrhus and the fall of Troy.

Dido

A figure in the story recited by the First Player, to whom Aeneas tells of Pyrrhus’s attack on Priam.

Priam

The elderly king of Troy, killed by Pyrrhus in the First Player’s recitation.

Hecuba

Also known as the mobled queen

Priam’s queen in the First Player’s recitation. Hamlet remarks on the player’s emotional performance of her grief.

Roscius

An actor in Rome mentioned by Hamlet while teasing Polonius.

Jephthah

Also known as judge of Israel

A biblical judge invoked by Hamlet in a pointed song about a man who had a beloved daughter.

Julius Caesar

Also known as Julius

The Roman leader whose fall is recalled by Horatio as a time when the dead were said to rise from their graves.

Hercules

A mythological hero mentioned by Hamlet in his exchange with Rosencrantz about the boy actors.

Niobe

A mythological figure invoked by Hamlet to describe Gertrude’s grief at his father’s funeral.

Nemean lion

A mythological lion whose legendary strength Hamlet invokes while resisting Horatio and Marcellus.

Saviour

Also known as Christ

A religious figure whose birth is mentioned by Marcellus when explaining a belief about spirits at Christmas.

The cock

Also known as bird of dawning

A rooster whose crowing signals dawn and makes the Ghost vanish.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and Attendants

Collective court and military roles listed among the characters; no individuals are identified in this passage.

First Player

An actor who recites Aeneas’s account of Pyrrhus and Hecuba and speaks the Player King in the performance before Claudius.

Player King

A role performed in the play staged at Elsinore. He is poisoned by Lucianus, and his wife then accepts the murderer.

Player Queen

A role performed in the play staged at Elsinore. She vows she would never marry a second husband after her first husband’s death.

Prologue

A player who delivers the brief prologue to the performance at Elsinore.

Lucianus

A character in the play staged by Hamlet, identified as the Player King’s nephew. He poisons the sleeping king and woos the queen.

Gonzago

Also known as the Duke

The Duke whose murder forms the basis of the play Hamlet stages to expose Claudius’s guilt. In Hamlet’s account of the plot, Gonzago’s wife is named Baptista.

Baptista

The wife of Gonzago in the play Hamlet describes as the basis for The Mousetrap.

Termagant

A figure Hamlet invokes while criticizing actors who overplay their roles.

Herod

The biblical king invoked by Hamlet to criticize exaggerated acting.

Vulcan

The mythological smith invoked by Hamlet in a comparison about his overheated imagination.

Nero

The Roman emperor Hamlet invokes while resolving not to be unnaturally cruel to Gertrude.

Phoebus

A sun deity whose chariot is mentioned in the Player King’s speech.

Neptune

A sea deity mentioned in the Player King’s speech.

Tellus

An earth deity mentioned in the Player King’s speech.

Hymen

A deity of marriage named in the Player King’s account of his wedding.

Hecate

A mythological figure invoked in Lucianus’s poison incantation.

Damon

A figure Hamlet addresses in a song to Horatio after Claudius stops the performance.

Lamord

A Norman gentleman and skilled horseman mentioned by Claudius and identified by Laertes as someone he knows.

Yorick

Also known as the King’s jester

The late King’s jester, whom Hamlet knew as a child and remembers fondly while contemplating his skull.

Alexander

Alexander the Great, mentioned by Hamlet while reflecting on how even the greatest people return to dust.

Cain

The biblical figure said by Hamlet to have committed the first murder.

Adam

The first man in biblical tradition, mentioned by the gravediggers in a joke about digging and arms.

First Ambassador

An ambassador from England who reports that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead and that the message sent to England came too late.

A Lord

A court lord who carries Claudius’s message to Hamlet, confirms the King and Queen are coming, and relays the Queen’s request that Hamlet treat Laertes kindly.