QUAINT PROBLEM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 4 November 1925, Page 9

QUAINT PROBLEM.

DILEMMA OF THE DANES.

EMPTY GRATE AT ELSINORE

The Danish people are in a quaint dilemma. Every year thousands of foreign tourists visit the Castle of Elsinore, made famous by Shakespeare, and the supposed grave of Hamlet close bv. But the Danes know that no Hamlet is buried there. It is doubtful if he ever existed, and if he did it was on the mainland of Jutland, and not on the easterly island where Copenhagen staqfls, with its neighbour, Elsinore. The guide-books make this quite clear, so that the sightseers are not in the least deceived. But Shakespeare put Hamlet there and made him die there, and they want to see the place where his body would have lain if Shakespeare had been right instead of wrong. So it is all quite straight and above board, and there is no real reason why the Danes should feel uncomfortable about it. Still, they do feel uncomfortable, and they have thought of a rather charming way of putting things right. The Danes suggest that, as Shakespeare's admirers insist on coming to Elsinore for love pf Shakespeare and his Hamlet, they should set up on the spot where no real Hamlet lies a memorial to Shakespeare and the Hamlet he imagined. If they do not do that, they say, the only alternative is to level the sham grave and tell the tourists there is nothing to.see. “ Ought we to level the grave,” they ask, “or should we give i( a new life by consecrating the ground to the memory of the world’s greatest poet and the Danish prince he has made famous, even if he did not exist?”