Comment by sevensor

I wonder why Hamlet is so sure his father (the elder Hamlet) has been murdered. We're presented with this as a fact, but it really comes down to, "I saw a ghost and it told me what to do." Even the guards who tell Hamlet about the ghost speculate that it might be some kind of Satanic ruse. We only find out at the end that Claudius really has been using poison. The way I read it, you could easily conclude that Hamlet is actually crazy, not just pretending, right up until the point where people start dying of poison on stage.

But that's only a retrospective justification and it doesn't really explain how Hamlet comes to be so fixed on revenge.

Also, speaking of predators and prey, I love the description of young Fortinabras early on:

                     Young Fortinbras,
    Of unimproved mettle, hot and full,
    Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
    Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes,
    For food and diet, to some enterprise
    That hath a stomach in’t