Providence of the Sparrow

In the final scene of the play, Hamlet has just accepted an invitation to challenge Laertes in an ill-fated match of swords. Horatio warns Hamlet to change plans if he senses something is wrong.

The passage is worth close scrutiny. Shakespeare wastes no words.

Horatio:

If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will
forestall their repair hither, and say you are not
fit.

Hamlet:

Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is't to leave betimes?

Here we see two very different people weighing their options.

Horatio examines the signs to predict what will happen, while Hamlet examines himself to decide who he will be.

Horatio makes an explicit appeal to the mind as the authority, which may tell him to turn back. Hamlet appeals to providence as the authority to change one's attitude.

Horatio suggests delaying the activities where Hamlet claims they are inevitable.


Hamlet's contention is that we often have 'no choice' over what happens to us. Ultimately we will all be dead one day. If we are all to share the same fate, our only choice is the way it will happen.

Hamlet speaks like someone who has considered Christ's words: 'Everyone who seeks to save his own life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.'

The outcome is the same for both people: they will die. One person dies after attempting to delay his death. Another person dies accepting death for the sake of his beloved, Christ.

"no man has aught of what he / leaves, what is't to leave betimes?"

Hamlet, the tragic hero of the play, is the master of letting go. His melancholy has left him dead to the glittering prizes of the world, and his indifference has prepared him for accepting death.

But here in this passage we see Hamlet entertaining the gladness of providence. He considers that God watches over the sparrow -that the sparrow need not fear if he only believes.

To consider the probability of good is augery.
To accept the certainty of hope is faith.

Often times the joy of God is like that small bit of light breaking through the clouds, but even the smallest bit of hope can illuminate the heart of the hopeless. This is the possibility Hamlet entertains, and it is the possibility available to everyone.

The human mind does not delay in burdening itself with many things, and it is easy for deliverance to seem like a distant possibility.

Does your mind tell you stories of suffering and despair?

Consider the unfailing love of God, which is close to believers in the time of their affliction.

Consider the way He did not spare even His own Son on your behalf, and how He will also extend all good things to His chosen ones.

Consider the sparrows, for there are none that can depart without God noticing them.