Hamlet then having deferred the murder of Claudius, in order to damn him, comes to confer with his mother; and notwithstanding his madness, overwhelms her with such bitter reproaches of her crime, as pierce her to the very heart. The old chamberlain, Polonius, is apprehensive of his carrying matters too far; he cries out for help behind the hanging; Hamlet takes it for granted that it was the king who had hid himself there, to listen to their conversation. “Ah mother,” cries he, “there is a great rat behind the hangings.” He thereupon draws his sword, runs to the rat, and kills the good man Polonius. “Ah my son, what are you about?” cries the queen. “Mother,” returns Hamlet, “it is the king that I have slain!” “It is a wicked action to kill a king;" [1] “Almost as wicked, my good mother, as to kill a king and lie with his brother.” This conversation lasts a long time; and Hamlet, as he goes out, walks upon the dead body of the old chamberlain, and is ready to fall down.[2]The translator's footnotes:
[1] This passage is manifestly translated wrong.
[2] This circumstance is entirely of the invention of M. de Voltaire; not contented with depreciating Shakespeare, he even misrepresents him.
Voltaire continues:
The good lord chamberlain was an old fool, and is represented as such, as has already been seen; his daughter Ophelia, who, no doubt, resembled him in this respect, becomes raving mad when she is informed of her father’s death: she runs upon the stage with flowers and straw upon her head, sings ballads, and then goes and drowns herself. Thus there are three mad people in the play, the chamberlain, and Hamlet, without reckoning the other buffoons who play their parts.
- From Voltaire, "Plan of the Tragedy of Hamlet", Philosophical Letters (1733)