Hamlets Ghost

You're on a guided tour of Elsinore Castle. Your group turns off, but when you turn around, no one is there. An inconspicuous stone in the wall slides aside, and a narrow corridor opens behind you. Driven by curiosity, you step inside. The door closes silently. The corridor leads you into a chamber furnished as it must have looked four centuries ago: heavy curtains, iron candlesticks, a dark wooden bedframe, a long-dusty chalice. As you absorb the silence, the candles go out. Darkness. Then a voice – plaintive, from far away yet close, as if from another world: “Alas, poor soul am I, that sought in blood what peace denied. Revenge I call’d it—yet ruin was my only crown. O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right, and lost the world thereby!” You whirl around. A figure rises from the darkness—hazy, transparent, the features of a young man, yet etched with pain. His eyes glow dully as he looks directly at you. “Alas! I am undone, a shadow of a prince. Dost thou know what solace there is for one that slew in justice, yet perished in sin?”