Hamlet, Prince of Denmark was a play written by the Human playwright William Shakespeare in the early 17th century. A tragedy, it is one of Shakespeare's more well-known plays.
The play deals with a young Danish price, Hamlet, whose father has recently died. He plots revenge when he learns that his father's brother and mother have been having an affair, and arranged for the death of Hamlet's father. Hamlet's revenge is fatal, not only to his uncle and mother, but ultimately to himself as well.
When humans joined the interstellar community, the play—along with Shakespeare's other works—became known to other races in addition to humans, such as the Klingons and Vulcans. (TNG episode: "Hide and Q")
Cockspur recited his own translation into Federation Standard of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy at the performance aboard the worldship by Amelinda Lukarian's vaudeville troupe. The director of the Klingon Empire's oversight committee and the other Klingon audience members reacted with overwhelming enthusiasm to Cockspur's performance. (TOS novel: Enterprise: The First Adventure)
When Spock was recovering from his return from death in 2285, Leonard McCoy quoted Shakespeare by saying, "Angels and ministers of grace, defend us," when informed that Spock had programmed the HMS Bounty's computers for time travel by memory. Spock not only correctly identified the quote as coming from Hamlet, but even specified that it was from Act 1, Scene 4 of the play. (TOS movie: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)
After Chancellor Gorkon had proposed a toast to The Undiscovered Country, Spock identified the reference as also being from Hamlet. General Chang recited the famous line, "taH pagh taHbe" in Klingon. ("To be or not to be"). (TOS movie: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
| Selected works of William Shakespeare |
|---|
| All's Well That Ends Well • As You Like It • Hamlet • Henry V • Julius Caesar • King Lear • Macbeth • The Merchant of Venice • A Midsummer Night's Dream • Othello • Romeo and Juliet • The Taming of the Shrew • Timon of Athens • Twelfth Night |
Behind the Scenes
The Klingon Language Institute has translated Hamlet, and have offered it for sale to the general public as The Klingon Hamlet (ISBN: 0671035789)
External links
- Hamlet article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
- Hamlet article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
- The Klingon Hamlet article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.