The Hamlet Project

Is this ghost particularly polite in his actions?
Particularly kind and solicitous? When we think of courtesy now,
We think of courtesies done, little extras, perhaps, in service.
In looking at the word, I wonder about its relationships to the court –
Is courteousness a quality of being a courtier?
I don’t think of a royal court as a place
Of great kindesses and graces
Although certainly it is full of appearances of those things;
Courtesy being a show, in some sense.
What then is this courteous action the ghost is performing?
Is it somehow refined? Somehow official?
And how is it doing that while simultaneously
Waving its son to a place farther away?
Does he have a place in mind for this meeting?
Has the ghost been imagining how this conversation would go
Since he rose from the dead?
I picture Hamlet Sr., the ghost, talking to himself:
“I’ll appear up there on the battlements until they bring Jr. Then,
I”ll take him to that garden my son of a bitch brother killed me in
And I’ll sit him down and give him the goods.”
Maybe he practices his speech while stalking the parapets.
Particularly that list, list, O, list part.