Shakespeare s classic tragedy of love, madness, and revenge was first enacted in London in 1602. Young Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is in mourning for his dead father, is visited by his fathers ghost telling him that he was murdered by his own brother, Claudius, who then assumed the throne and married Hamlets mother, Gertrude. Intent on revenge, Hamlet feigns madness and plots to kill Claudius. When he accidentally stabs Polonius, Claudiuss counselor, Hamlet is sent into exile--and Poloniuss daughter, Ophelia, who had been in love with Hamlet, goes mad from grief and drowns herself. In the climax of the play, old scores are settled at last, and Hamlets speaks his famous last words: The rest is silence. Considered one of Shakespeares greatest plays, HAMLET is part of the well-established tradition of revenge tragedies that were popular at the end of the Elizabethan era, but the play transcends all its influences in its examination of justice and duty, and as a subtle portrait of a sensitive young man torn between righteous revenge and his duty as a moral man.