Hamlet, Horatio, and Love

Abstract This essay explores a two-part question: Why does Hamlet not tell Horatio that he loves him, and why does Horatio not tell Hamlet this? One might say that, in effect, they do say this to each other—in the middle of the play on Hamlet’s part, at the end of the play on Horatio’s. But in effect raises exactly the puzzle that the essay explores. Why do they not actually use the word in affirmations of their feelings for one another? The fact is that they do not, even though Hamlet uses the word freely in describing his relationships to other male figures as well as to Ophelia, and in describing his social relationships in general. The essay shows a rich web of verbal and conceptual connections between Hamlet’s thoughts and Horatio’s. This would seem to point to “one soul in bodies twain,” but Hamlet’s encomium on Horatio is shown to be weirdly impersonal, and the ideal that it seems to admire is shown to be parodic. The essay traces “love” and “friendship” in the play and makes the case that neither of these obviously relevant terms seems adequate to capturing the Hamlet–Horatio relationship.