but, having uttered this reminder, he immediately bids the son to help
the mother and 'step between her and her fighting soul.'

And, whether intentionally or not, another purpose is served by
Shakespeare's choice of this particular moment. It is a moment when the
state of Hamlet's mind is such that we cannot suppose the Ghost to be
meant for an hallucination; and it is of great importance here that the
spectator or reader should not suppose any such thing. He is further
guarded by the fact that the Ghost proves, so to speak, his identity by
showing the same traits as were visible on his first appearance--the
same insistence on the duty of remembering, and the same concern for the
Queen. And the result is that we construe the Ghost's interpretation of
Hamlet's delay ('almost blunted purpose') as the truth, the dramatist's
own interpretation. Let me add that probably no one in Shakespeare's
audience had any doubt of his meaning here. The idea of later critics
and readers that the Ghost is an hallucination is due partly to failure
to follow the indications just noticed, but partly also to two mistakes,
the substitution of our present intellectual atmosphere for the
Elizabethan, and the notion that, because the Queen does not see and
hear the Ghost, it is meant to be unreal. But a ghost, in Shakespeare's
day, was able for any sufficient reason to confine its manifestation to
a single person in a company; and here the sufficient reason, that of
sparing the Queen, is obvious.[61]

At the close of this scene it appears that Hamlet has somehow learned of
the King's design of sending him to England in charge of his two
'school-fellows.' He has no doubt that this design covers some
villainous plot against himself, but neither does he doubt that he will
succeed in defeating it; and, as we saw, he looks forward with pleasure