Act One, Scene One

Francisco, a soldier standing watch outside the gates of Elsinore Castle in Denmark, is met by Barnardo who has arrived to replace him. They are soon joined by Marcellus, another guard, and Horatio. Horatio is a scholar who speaks Latin, and he has been brought along because Barnardo and Marcellus claim they have seen a ghost. While Barnardo describes to Horatio exactly what he has seen, the ghost appears in front of them. Horatio tries to speak with the ghost in Latin, saying, "Stay, speak, speak, I charge thee speak" (1.1.49), but the ghost remains silent and then leaves.

Horatio tells Barnardo that the ghost looks like the deceased King Hamlet, also known as Old Hamlet. Horatio sees that the ghost was dressed the same way as King Hamlet was when he defeated King Fortinbras of Norway. The story is that King Hamlet went to Norway and fought Fortinbras in single combat. The loser agreed to yield all his land to the other king. However, in the time since King Hamlet died, the son of King Fortinbras, known as young Fortinbras, has been gathering together troops and is threatening to attack Denmark.

The ghost enters a second time and Horatio again begs it to speak to him. Just as it seems the ghost is about to say something, a cock crows and the ghost disappears. Horatio tells Marcellus that he will inform young Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark and the son of King Hamlet, that a ghost keeps appearing in the shape of his father. Marcellus knows where young Hamlet is and leaves with Horatio to find him.

Act One, Scene Two

King Claudius, who has assumed the throne since his brother King Hamlet died, is accompanied by Queen Gertrude and other lords and attendants in Elsinore Castle. He addresses the people, telling them that although his brother's death is fresh in their minds, it is time for them to celebrate his royal marriage to Queen Gertrude, who was also his brother's former wife. He further informs the people that young Fortinbras of Norway has assembled armies against Denmark. In response to this threat, Claudius sends two men, Valtemand and Cornelius, as messengers to the uncle of young Fortinbras with a letter in which he asks the older uncle to stop young Fortinbras from attempting to attack Denmark.

Claudius next asks a young nobleman named Laertes why he has requested an audience. Laertes informs him that although he has been fulfilled his duties and attended the coronation in Denmark, he would rather return to France. Claudius asks Polonius, Laertes' father, if he has given permission for his son to go. Polonius assents, and Laertes is allowed to leave Denmark.

Turning to Hamlet, Claudius asks his nephew why he is still in mourning for his father's death, hinting that Hamlet might only be pretending to be grief-stricken. Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude, also asks him why he still dresses in black clothing. Hamlet replies that his grief is quite real and that he will continue grieving. Claudius tells him it is unnatural for a man to remain sorrowful for such a long time. Both Claudius and Gertrude then beg Hamlet to stay with them in Denmark instead of returning to Wittenberg where his university is located. Hamlet agrees to stay, and watches as everyone leaves the hall to celebrate his uncle's and his mother's marriage.

He is upset about the fact that his mother married Claudius within less than two months after the death of King Hamlet. Hamlet says, "O most wicked speed, to post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!" (1.2.157). He is interrupted by the arrival of Horatio, Barnardo, and Marcellus, who have come to tell him about the ghost they have seen.

Horatio tells Hamlet about seeing the ghost of King Hamlet. Hamlet asks them if they have the watch again that night, and Barnardo says they do. At this information, Hamlet agrees to join them that night in order to see the ghost and hopefully to speak with it.

Act One, Scene Three

Laertes, about to leave for France, says farewell to his sister Ophelia. He warns her to beware of Hamlet, whom he tells her is insincere. "For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour, / Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, / ...sweet not lasting" (1.3.5-6, 8). Laertes then lectures Ophelia, telling her that Hamlet will say anything to win her heart. He tells her to hold off, and if Hamlet still loves her after he has been made king, only then should she consider marrying him. Ophelia agrees to remember what he has told her.

Polonius then arrives and tells Laertes to hurry up and catch his ship before it leaves the harbor. As he walks Laertes towards the ship, Polonius gives his son fatherly advice. "Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar. / The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, / Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel" (1.3.61-63). Laertes promises to obey his father, and leaves after he reminds Ophelia to remember what he has said.

Polonius asks Ophelia what advice Laertes gave her. Ophelia tells him, and Polonius gets mad at her for believing what Hamlet has told her. He orders her to give less of her time to Hamlet in the future, saying, "From this time, daughter, / Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence" (1.3.120-121). Ophelia tells her father she will do what he commands: "I shall obey, my lord" (1.3.136).

Act One, Scene Four

Hamlet and Horatio are outside waiting for the ghost to arrive. They hear a cannon go off, and Hamlet tells Horatio that the cannon is fired whenever the king empties a draught of Rhenish wine. Hamlet is upset about the custom, because he thinks it makes Denmark appear to be a land of drunkards. The ghost arrives and Hamlet tries to speak to it, but it only beckons him to follow it. Horatio and Marcellus try to make him stay, but Hamlet tells them to let go of him. Marcellus and Horatio watch him leave and decide to follow him. Marcellus remarks, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" (1.4.67).

Act One, Scene Five

Hamlet follows the ghost, who finally speaks and informs Hamlet that he is the spirit of Old Hamlet, Hamlet's father. The ghost indicates that he is in purgatory, "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 burned and purged away" (1.5.9-13). The ghost then tells Hamlet to listen to him closely.

Old Hamlet orders his son to revenge his murder. Hamlet is confused, not understanding what the ghost is speaking about. The ghost tells him that "sleeping in mine orchard, / A serpent stung me" (1.5.35-36), alluding to the fact that he was murdered. He goes on to say that the serpent is his brother, Claudius, who entered the garden where he was sleeping and poured poison into his ear. He died without having a chance to confess his sins, and is therefore forced to suffer in Purgatory until his sins are burned away.

The ghost leaves Hamlet with the words, "Adieu, adieu, Hamlet. Remember me" (1.5.91). Hamlet wonders about what he has heard, and decides that he believes the ghost. He makes Marcellus and Horatio swear to never reveal what they have seen. He then makes them swear a second time, this time on his dagger which is shaped like a cross. He tells Horatio, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in our philosophy" (1.5.168-169). They all swear yet again and return to the castle.

Analysis

Hamlet is fundamentally a play about seeking the truth. The opening scene is a miniature play which introduces the questions that will have to be answered throughout the rest of the work. Barnardo asks, "Who's there?" and is answered by Fransisco with, "Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself" (1.1.1-2). The entire plot is encapsulated in these words, with Hamlet struggling to know who is really standing across from him, and with his own unfolding of himself to the audience. Thus Hamlet will seek to know the truth about whether the ghost is really his father while simultaneously trying to figure out who he himself is as a person.

The ghost presents a figure of antiquity that contrast strongly with the more modern Denmark ruled by Claudius. Barnardo comments, "Looks it not like the King?" (1.1.41), responding to the image of Old Hamlet as the old warrior, wearing complete armor and holding a truncheon. In fact, we are told he looks the same as when he defeated Old Norway. Even the language of the ghost relies on mythology to compare things, "I find thee apt, / And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed / That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf" (1.5.31-33). This conflict between the new world which has defeated the old world is made clear by Hamlet, who comments, "That thou, dead corpse, again in complete steel" (1.4.33). Later this contrast will come across even more clearly, in the choice of armor and weaponry. Whereas Old Hamlet appears wearing full armor, the new weapons will be the rapier and the fencing armor, showing how combat is made in sport rather than in war.

Claudius represents the voice of this new society; he is the perfect new politician and stands in contrast to Old Hamlet. This is evidenced strongly by their choice of words: Old Hamlet is of the old Senecan tradition and uses repetition, Claudius uses prose. Claudius further prefers to define himself with the words, "though", "ourselves", and "therefore", as opposed to ghost who uses "I". In true political vein, Claudius' words flow smoothly but the his meaning runs counter to the words. For instance, only by listening closely does the audience realize that he is speaking about incest but hiding it with the language he chooses. We have to listen closely to realize there is something wrong with what he is saying, such as when he contradicts himself: "With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage" (1.2.12).

One of the most interesting parallels is the non-play concerning Fortinbras, a man whose story is told only be others until the very end. He is almost a perfect parallel to Hamlet: his father has been murdered, his uncle has taken the reigns of power, and he desires revenge. However, in contradiction to Hamlet, he is also a man who is able to act. We learn in the first act that he has raised an army to attack Denmark, and by the final act he actually appears with his army. Hamlet's growth as a character can in many ways be seen as a progression to what Fortinbras is able to do, namely take action. Claudius will underestimate Fortinbras' army, much the way he underestimates Hamlet's madness, thereby causing his own destruction.

The clothes that Hamlet wears during the opening scenes indicate both his state of mind and also his perception of his mother and Claudius. Queen Gertrude begs Hamlet to remove his black clothing, "Good Hamlet, cast thy nightly colour off" (1.2.68). The clothes take on two separate meanings here, the first of which deals with melancholy. Melancholy was traditionally viewed as the cause of madness by physicians of Shakespeare's time, and thus Hamlet's wardrobe serves to foreshadow his future madness, or at least lends credence to it. The clothes also indicate that Hamlet is an actor. He is not still in mourning for his father, evidenced by his comment to his mother that mourning clothes do not necessarily mean he is still mourning. The inference that can be drawn from this is that Hamlet thinks that the king's clothes do not mean he is a real king. Hamlet's rejection of his clothes after the first act lends credence to the argument that he is merely acting, as do his words in which he tells the audience that he will no longer pretend the way Claudius does.

Hamlet is also a play about watching plays, a job that can quickly become dangerous. There are the watch sentries watching the ghost, Polonius watching Hamlet, Claudius watching the Mousetrap play, etc. All of this ties in with the fact that Claudius and Gertrude are actually a player king and a player queen, both literally and figuratively. Hamlet alone is able to overcome this by not being illusory. He tells his mother, "Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not 'seems'" (1.2.76). This "seems" also plays on the phonic similarity of "seems" and "scenes". Hamlet is basically refusing to be called an actor. He states, "These indeed 'seem', / For they are actions that a man might play" (1.2.83-84). His rejection of illusion is based on a rejection of fakeness and lies, not merely acting. Thus his feigned madness, while at first glance an form of acting, is actually lucidity, Hamlet uses his madness to speak truthfully without being punished.

The imagery of gardens, used often in Shakespeare's plays, reemerges here. Hamlet says, "'Tis an unweeded garden / That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature / Possess it merely" (1.2.135-137). He is referring to his mother, whose lust for Claudius allowed her to marry him barely two months after his father's death. The garden is traditionally associated with Eden, and thus the imagery here is that of Eden falling apart. Indeed, his father's ghost makes this same connection, saying that he was stung by a serpent while in his garden (1.5). Thus Denmark under Old Hamlet can be viewed as Eden, whereas now the serpent, in the form of Claudius, has taken over.

The profound change in Hamlet as a person can be seen in his comparison of himself to Hercules. He first states, "No more like my father / Than I to Hercules" (1.2.152-153). Here he indicates he is not Hercules, meaning he is not strong and confrontational. However, by the end of the play, he will be say "Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew and dog will have his day" (5.1.298). This change, from a man who first indicates his weakness compared to Hercules to a man who claims that even Hercules could not stop him, shows the growth in Hamlet from indecisive weakling to active tragic hero.

There is a great deal of advice given by fathers to their sons. Polonius is the first example of this, when he uses platitudes to tell Laertes how to behave in France. However, this use of platitudes hides his real meaning. This contrasts with Old Hamlet, who also gives advice to his son Hamlet. Here the advise is direct, the orders are clear. In fact, the ghost tells Hamlet to, "List, Hamlet, list, O list!" (1.5.22). The order is to listen to his every word because of its directness.

Ophelia is a Shakespearian woman who is caught, as in so many of the comedies, between a strong father and a strong lover. She must choose right in the first act whether to obey her love for Hamlet or her father's orders. The tragedy for Ophelia is that she chooses her father, saying, "I shall obey, my lord" (1.3.136). By choosing her father, Ophelia displays a passivity that will lead to her own destruction when he is killed.

Ears play a significant role in the imagery of this play. They are everywhere, showing up in the advise to sons, eavesdropping, "words like daggers", the ghost crying "List, list", and the poison poured into Old Hamlet's ear. Ears, through their ability to absorb words, are actually the way many of the characters become poisoned. Old Hamlet literally has poison poured into his ear to kill him, but he then pours the poison of words into his son Hamlet's ears, crying out for revenge. Indeed, when Marcellus says, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" (1.4.67), the rot is actually the tale that the ghost tells, the poison poured into Hamlet's ear. This will instigate the other forms of ear imagery, with Hamlet sending "dagger" into his mother's ears in an attempt to make her realize what Claudius has done.

There is a great deal of uncertainty about the ghost, namely he raises the question of whether he is a good ghost or a demon pretending to be Hamlet's father. He states that, "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 burned and purged away" (1.5.9-13). The problem here is that he is describing purgatory, a middle world between heaven and hell where the sins are burned away over time. However, Protestant Denmark did not believe in purgatory, and instead considered anyone who did to be a Catholic. This clash of religions makes the ghost seem untrustworthy in a Protestant world. The ambiguity about the ghost's truthfulness will culminate in Hamlet trying to test and validate the ghost's claims.

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