Note 22 — Chapter IV

Helsingor, or Elsinore, now a busy town, is the scene of Shakespeare’s play, “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” and, on “the platform before the castle of Elsinore”—in other words, the flagged battlements of Kronborg—the ghost of “Hamlet” appeared. Local tradition also points out “the grave of Hamlet” and “the spring of Ophelia,” both, of course, legendary. Hamlet, in fact, never visited Elsinore, but was born and lived in Jutland. But Shakespeare shows a curious knowledge of Elsinore and Kronborg, and some light has been thrown on this subject by the discovery among the archives of Elsinore of a manuscript, which shows that in 1585 a wooden theatre, in which a troop of English comedians had been acting, was burned down. The names of the actors are given. Nearly all of them have been proved to belong to Shakespeare’s company, though the name of the poet is not among them. A monument is now being erected to Shakespeare at Kronborg, to which Queen Alexandra has contributed.