Cimorene

he and ophelia weren't affianced, you know. i think it's even ambiguous whether his intentions were honorable. in the branagh version he sleeps with her but that's certainly not canon, and i think goes against popular interpretation. they had to have grown up both at court and known one another, but hamlet has been away for years in germany (and hasn't horatio been there too? or was he someplace else?) . i've always assumed their romance wasn't of such great duration.

i mean, when you look at the 'get thee to a nunnery' scene, either he:

a) actually is mad and can't help himself.
b) doesn't really love her all that much and is thus willing to be cruel to her in the service of his new One True Purpose, ie revenge.
c) has a nasty temper, and though he really cares, is willing to be cruel cause he's angry that she obeyed her father's command to stop seeing him.
(there are others which i think are not really suggested by the text, but it can be twisted to them--i.e. that he knows they're watching and says everything with double entendre and that she grasps he doesn't really mean it.)

my preferred interpretation is (b)--because i don't like (c) and i think (a) is discredited elsewhere in the play. if you assume that theirs was largely a courtly love, or an infatuation, and that except for the last few months they haven't seen one another since ophelia was a child... well.

on a slightly different subject--doesn't it also say horatio is his oldest friend? how far back do you assume it goes? at one point, i remember being confused because he says he 'saw the king once.' (me: only once? didn't you grow up in elsinore?) maybe they were at boarding school together.