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Hamlet's girlfriend is Ophelia. Does he want to marry her? He doesn't really say. He has "made tenders of his affection", he has "importuned [Ophelia] with love in honourable fashion", he says in his love letter "never doubt I love", and "but that I love thee best, oh most best, believe it", he says in the nunnery scene "I did love you once", and says at her funeral "I loved Ophelia". He often says he loves her but doesn't talk of marriage.

Perhaps it is because he is closely related to the king and queen and the presumed heir to the throne that he steers clear of this topic. In the reign of Bloody Mary, Thomas Seymour was executed in part for suggesting that he might marry Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth. Love was a personal matter, but marriage was a state matter. That is why Laertes cautions Ophelia, "His will is not his own. He may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for himself."

Gertrude, on the other hand, was thinking of marriage between Hamlet and Ophelia. "I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife."

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15y ago

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