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I am thy father's spirit loom for a certain term to warm the night.

And for the day confined to fast in fires, till thee, foul crimes done in my days of

nature, are burnt and purged away.

But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house.

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul,

wreathed thy young blood. Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres.

Thy knotted and combinid locks to part and each particular hair to stand on in, like quills upon

the fretful porpentine.

But this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood.

This, this, oh list, if thou didst, if thou didst ever thy dear father love,

revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

From Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

Hamlet's father, as is revealed to the melancholic prince of Denmark,

was murdered by his own brother, Claudius, so that Claudius could swoop in with Hamlet's

mother and ascend the throne. His father's ghost seeks revenge and tasks Hamlet with the deed, a plan which Hamlet fulfills, albeit

to his own downfall.

Shakespeare deftly used the theme of revenge in his works and in examples like this

one Julius Caesar and Richard III the supernatural is also utilized to great effect. The idea of ghosts as vectors for vengeance is almost

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