List of characters

The Royal House of Denmark

The Court of Denmark

Former fellow students of Hamlet

Norway

Other characters in the play

The action of the play is set in and around
the Danish royal palace at Elsinore.

Francisco is on sentry duty on the gun platform of Elsinore. It is midnight and freezing cold. Barnardo comes to relieve Francisco. Horatio and Marcellus arrive to join Barnardo.

1 Act it out! (in groups of four)

To experience the tense and uneasy atmosphere of the play’s opening, the best thing to do is take parts and act out the first nineteen lines. You will find that speaking the lines helps you create the urgent and ominous mood that the short staccato exchanges establish. As you rehearse, talk together about the following points. Remember, your aim is to make the opening moments of the play gripping and dramatic.

1. What will be the first thing the audience sees? For example, is Francisco on sentry duty, patrolling the stage, before the first members of the audience enter?
2. Barnardo, the newcomer, challenges Francisco. This is contrary to military practice (Francisco should challenge him). How can you use that error to intensify the nervous atmosphere?
3. How can you show the audience that the night is bitterly cold?
4. Francisco is never seen again in the play, but his remark ‘And I am sick at heart’ forecasts the troubled melancholy that Hamlet feels when he appears in the next scene. How might Francisco speak and behave during his brief time on stage?
5. In Shakespeare’s day, the play was staged in broad daylight. Identify all the words and phrases in the script that help create the impression of night and darkness.
6. What are the soldiers wearing? Sketch their costumes.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Act 1 Scene 1
A gun platform on the battlements of Elsinore Castle

Marcellus reports that he and Barnardo have seen the Ghost twice. Horatio doesn’t believe them, but is struck with fear and amazement when the Ghost of Hamlet’s father appears.

1 Horatio’s thoughts and feelings change (in pairs)

Horatio doesn’t believe Marcellus’s story, but then sees the Ghost with his own eyes. Horatio speaks five times on the opposite page. Talk together about the tone of his voice each time he speaks. Speak the lines to each other in an appropriate style. Afterwards, write down the range of emotions and attitudes that Horatio displays.

2 ‘Enter GHOST’ – dead King Hamlet appears (in pairs)

The entry of the Ghost of Hamlet’s father is a thrilling moment in the theatre. Each new production attempts to ensure that the entry is as electrifying and memorable as possible. Talk together and write notes on each of the following:

1. What does the Ghost look like? Horatio gives a clue in lines 47–9 (and see the pictures in the colour section and on pp. 10, 26 and 146).
2. Suggest how the Ghost might enter. Slowly or suddenly? From which direction? Decide whether he makes any gestures, what sound effects you might use, and how he leaves the stage.
3. Sometimes, as the Ghost appears, the bell strikes. Would you have it strike if you were directing the play? Why? Or why not?
4. In some productions the Ghost does not appear physically. The audience has to imagine its presence through lighting, sound and characters’ reactions. How effective do you think this style of presenting the Ghost would be? Would you do the same?

Horatio agrees that the Ghost is the exact image of the dead King Hamlet. He thinks it foretells disasters for Denmark. Horatio begins to explain why there are so many urgent preparations for war.

1 A battle? Or an angry gesture?(in small groups)

Do lines 62–3 tell of Denmark’s king defeating the Polish army (‘Polacks’) in a battle on the ice (‘sledded’ = on sledges)? Or do they mean that the king, in an angry discussion (‘parle’) with the Norwegians, struck his battle axe on the ice like a sledge hammer (= ‘sledded’). Sometimes the word ‘Polacks’ is printed as ‘polax’ (poleaxe).

   Work out two tableaux (frozen pictures) showing each interpretation. Decide which version is more imaginative and dramatic.

2 Denmark prepares for war (in pairs)

In lines 70–9 Marcellus questions why Denmark is feverishly preparing for war. Guards are mounted everywhere. ‘Brazen’ (brass) cannons roll off the production line daily. Weapons are bought in foreign countries and imported (‘foreign mart for implements of war’). Ships are being built by forced labour (‘impress’), working night and day, even on Sundays (unusual in a Christian country).

   Write six additional lines listing more of Denmark’s frantic war preparations. Use the same urgent style as Marcellus does.

3 ‘Doubling’ – a feature of the play

Opposite are examples of a language device that recurs through the play. It is the use of ‘and’ to achieve a ‘doubling’ effect: ‘tremble and look pale’, ‘sensible and true avouch’, ‘gross and scope’, ‘strict and most observant’. As you read on, list other examples (there are at least seven in Horatio’s lines 80–107). The technical term is hendiadys (pronounced ‘hen-die-a-dees’). You will find information about its dramatic importance on pages 268–9.

Horatio says that young Fortinbras intends to regain the lands his father lost when killed by King Hamlet. The Ghost’s appearance presages violence, just as Caesar’s death was foretold by ominous events.

1 Act out Horatio’s story!(in groups of six or more)

In lines 80–107 Horatio explains why Denmark is preparing for war. The king of Norway (old Fortinbras) had dared King Hamlet (Hamlet’s father) to personal combat. Both men wagered (‘gagèd’) large areas of land on the outcome of the duel. Hamlet killed Fortinbras and so took over his territory. Now young Fortinbras, with an army of mercenaries (‘landless resolutes’), seeks to recover his father’s lost lands. The Danes are hastily preparing to defend themselves against the imminent invasion.

     Bring Horatio’s story to life. One person narrates, the others enact each episode. The lines contain over twenty-five separate actions that can be shown. (For instance, ‘Sharked up’ is a vivid image of a shark feeding indiscriminately.)

2 Predicting disasters – is Horatio superstitious?

‘A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye’ says Horatio (line 112): the appearance of the Ghost is an irritant (‘mote’) to the imagination. It suggests that disasters lie ahead. Shakespeare had written Julius Caesar shortly before Hamlet. The recollection of the sinister omens that preceded the death of Caesar was fresh in his mind. Horatio lists them: the living dead, comets, bloody rain, sunspots, an eclipse of the moon (‘the moist star’).

     Is Horatio superstitious? He at first disbelieved the supernatural events that Marcellus had described. Now he seems to believe in omens and auguries. Explore different ways of speaking lines 112–25 (as obvious truth, sceptically, fearfully etc.). Which style seems most appropriate to Horatio’s character?

Horatio five times demands that the reappearing Ghost speak to him. The cock crows and the Ghost vanishes without reply. Horatio says it cannot be harmed, but that it behaved like a criminal summoned to justice.

‘. . . lo where it comes again!’ Compare this presentation of the Ghost with those in the colour section and on pages 26 and 146.

1 Advise the actors

Horatio expresses three popular superstitions about why a ghost appears: it seeks someone whose action will enable it to rest in peace (lines 130–1); it knows of a future disaster in store for its country (lines 133–4); it seeks buried treasure, unjustly acquired (‘Extorted’) when alive (lines 136–7).

     Step into role as director and write notes for the actors playing Horatio and the Ghost. Advise them, line by line, what they should do throughout lines 126–42. Give thought particularly to Horatio’s five-times repeated demand that the Ghost should speak.