l wearing black in mourning for the dead king. Gertrude urges him to cast it off, but he replies bitterly that his inner sorrow is so great that his sour appearance is merely a poor mirror of it. Claudius declares that all fathers die, and that all sons must lose their fathers, and that to mourn for too long is unmanly and inappropriate. Shakespeare's view of deception is revealed when Hamlet puts on this "antic disposition" and delays in killing Claudius. But Hamlet did not swear to his dead father that he, detective-like, would investigate. Hamlet swore revenge. And he has more than enough motivation to exact revenge. Yet he delays. It is this delay in performing the act he has sworn to accomplish which leads to Hamlet's death. The poison on the tip of Laertes' sword is a metaphor for the
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