1. Act One, Scene Four
Hamlet

2. Act One, Scene Four
Hamlet: What hour now? Horatio: I think it lacks of twelve. Marcellus: No, it is struck. Horatio: Indeed, I heard it not. It then draws near the season / Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. A flourish of trumpets and two pieces goes off.

3. Act One, Scene Four
Hamlet: What hour now? [What time is it?] Horatio: I think it lacks of twelve. [I think it’s almost twelve.] Marcellus: No, it is struck. [No, it is past twelve.] Horatio: Indeed, I heard it not. It then draws near the season / Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. [I didn’t hear it. It’s almost Ghost Time!] A flourish of trumpets and two pieces goes off.

4. Act One, Scene Four
A flourish of trumpets and two pieces goes off. Horatio: What does this mean, my lord? Hamlet: The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse, / Keeps wassail, and the swagg’ring upspring reels; / And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, / The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out / The triumph of his pledge.

5. Act One, Scene Four
Horatio: What does this mean, my lord? Hamlet: The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse, / Keeps wassail, and the swagg’ring upspring reels; / And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, / The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out / The triumph of his pledge. The King drank his wine all at once and all that noise was to celebrate this…accomplishment.

6. Act One, Scene Four
Then Hamlet goes on about how this is their tradition and he’ll have to keep it up because of who he is, but he thinks it makes them look bad and takes away from their other accomplishments and attributes.

7. Act One, Scene Four
ENTER GHOST Hamlet: Angels and ministers of grace, defend us! / Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned, / Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, / Be thy intents wicked or charitable, / Thou com’st in such a questionable shape / That I will speak to thee. You might be good or evil, ghost, but because you look like my father, I will speak to you.

8. Act One, Scene Four
ENTER GHOST Hamlet: I’ll call thee “Hamlet,” / “King,” “Father,” “Royal Dane.” O, answer me! / Let me not burst in ignorance but tell / Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, / Have burst their cerements; why the sepulcher, / Wherein we saw thee quietly interred, / Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws / To cast thee up again. The ghost isn’t telling Hamlet anything which causes Hamlet to become quite desperate.

9. Act One, Scene Four
ENTER GHOST Hamlet: What may this mean / That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel, / Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon, / Making night hideous, and we fools of nature / So horridly to shake our disposition / With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? / Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do? Why are you here making us so confused and horrified? What do you want????

10. Act One, Scene Four
GHOST BECKONS Horatio: It beckons you to go away with it / As if it some impartment did desire / To you alone. Marcellus: It waves you to a more removed ground. / But do not go with it. Horatio: No, by no means. Translation: DON’T GO, HAMLET.

11. Act One, Scene Four
GHOST BECKONS Hamlet: It will not speak. Then I will follow it. Horatio: Do not, my lord. Hamlet: Why, what should be the fear?...It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it. Horatio: YOU MIGHT DIE.

12. Act One, Scene Four
They hold back Hamlet. Hamlet: Hold off your hands. Horatio: Be ruled. You shall not go. Hamlet: My fate cries out…Unhand me, gentlemen. / By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me! / I say, away! –Go on, I’ll follow thee. This is fate, so you better let go, otherwise I’ll kill you if I can!

13. SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF DENMARK.
Marcellus, speaking one of Shakespeare’s most famous lines.
End of Act One, Scene Four

14. Act One, Scene Five
Enter Ghost and Hamlet Hamlet: Alas, poor ghost! Ghost: Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing / To what I shall unfold. Hamlet: Speak. I am bound to hear. Ghost: So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

15. Act One, Scene Five
Enter Ghost and Hamlet Hamlet: Alas, poor ghost! Ghost: Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing / To what I shall unfold. Hamlet: Speak. I am bound to hear. Ghost: So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

16. Act One, Scene Five
Enter Ghost and Hamlet Ghost: I am thy father’s spirit, / Doomed for a certain term to walk the night / And for the day confined to fast in fires / Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature / Are burnt and purged away. Yes, it is I, King Hamlet’s Ghost. By night, I walk around here. By day…well, it isn’t pretty and I can’t tell you. But it’s super scary and awful, trust me.

17. Act One, Scene Five
Enter Ghost and Hamlet Ghost: Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. Hamlet: Murder? Ghost: Murder most foul, as in the best it is, / But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. Really hitting home the idea of revenge. Wonder why.

18. Act One, Scene Five
Enter Ghost and Hamlet Ghost: Now, Hamlet, hear. / ‘Tis given that, sleeping in my orchard, / A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark / Is by a forged process of my death / Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, / The serpent that did sting thy father’s life / NOW WEARS HIS CROWN. Omg, Uncle Claudius. You jerk.

19. Act One, Scene Five
Ghost: Blah, blah, blah. I can’t believe it myself, I’ll tell ya. / But soft, methinks I scent the morning air. / Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard, / My custom always of the afternoon, / Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole / With juice of cursed hebona in a vial / And in the porches of my ears did pour / The leprous distilment… I was taking a nap like usual and Uncle Claudius poured poison in my ear which clot my blood and turned my skin gross and then I died.

20. Act One, Scene Five
Ghost: Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand / Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched, Cut off, even in the blossoms of my sin…sent to my account / With all my imperfections on my head. I died without having asked for forgiveness for my sins. Hence my previous mention of flames and fires and whatnot.

21. Act One, Scene Five
Ghost: But, howsomever thou pursues this act, / Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive / Against they mother aught. Don’t take your revenge out on your mom. God will deal with her and her sins. Hamlet: I WILL REMEMBER YOU FOREVER. Then he gets super dramatic. Lots of polysyndeton and asyndeton in this scene, just FYI.

22. Act One, Scene Five
Enter Horatio and Marcellus Horatio: What news, my lord? Hamlet: O, wonderful! Horatio: Good my lord, tell it. Hamlet: Not until you pinky promise.

23. Act One, Scene Five
Enter Horatio and Marcellus So then they swear on Hamlet’s sword with the Ghost yelling “Swear” from underneath the stage. I mean from the afterlife. Horatio is still having a hard time with this. It’s “wondrous strange.”

24. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet, speaking another famous line by Shakespeare
Act One, Scene Five

25. Act One, Scene Five
Lines Hamlet has a plan. Sort of. What is it? Hamlet will probably be acting crazy in the future. When this happens, they must promise not to give anything away about what they know from this night. Awesome plan. I’m sure nothing will go wrong.