"Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her."
In the ghost's speech in which he tells Hamlet explicitly how he died and who killed him, he charges Hamlet with the duty of avenging his death. Oddly, he says not to harm his mother. This is unexpected because the ghost has just asked his son to kill his uncle. I can’t decide whether he doesn’t want his son to kill his own mother, or if he actually has sympathy for a woman who he once loved so much. However he does assert she will be punished in heavy for her sins. In any case I have to beg the question of who the ghost is more upset with and why: the wife who betrayed their marriage vows and conspired against him or the brother who took his house, his bed, and his crown?
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