Hamlet, Fortinbras, and the Time Value of Risk in Shakespeare’s Elsinore

Is it better to defend against or assault fortune? By weaving together the adventures of two princes—one who is “risk on” and the other “risk off”—Shakespeare explores the mysteries of risk. While tragic protagonists frequently perish because they take questionable risks (Macbeth committing regicide, Caesar ignoring warnings, or Lear dividing Britain), Shakespeare explores in Hamlet whether caution is risk free. Caution is a source of systemic risk because opportunity is a sliding door and a window. By choosing caution instead of action, the window of opportunity may close. Although both Hamlet and Fortinbras start from similar circumstances and backgrounds, they end up in different places. Fortinbras, by maximizing risk, restores his ancestral prerogatives. Hamlet, by taking a more prudent course, paradoxically fails. Because risk has a time value, Hamlet dramatizes how the greatest risk may be taking insufficient risk. In tragedy, a world where the only thing that can be expected is the unexpected, there are always unexpected ways to fail (or succeed) that cannot be foreseen, but are patently obvious afterwards. When audiences analyze Hamlet with hindsight, they sometimes forget that it was with foresight they enjoyed the play: this is an artifact of Hamlet being too famous. To original audiences, it was unclear until the last whether Fortinbras or Hamlet would prove most royal. Only after the play ends does hindsight become twenty-twenty. Until then, the question of whether to defend against or assault fortune hangs in the balance, fueling drama’s engines.