Hamlet

Act 1, Sc. 4, lines 41-59: Briefly characterize Hamlet as seen at court, then alone with his own thoughts, and when he is with Horatio.

Horatio: Look, my lord, it comes.

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. I'll call thee "Hamlet," "King," "Father," "Royal Dane." O, answer me! Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell Why they canonized bones, hearsèd 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. What may this mean That thou, dead corpse, 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?

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Hamlet is outside the castle with his friends in this scene. Hamlet decides to follow the ghost. After the ghost leaves Hamlet is rather vague about the ghost to Hamlet and Marcellus. He does not tell them about the specifics of the conversation with the ghost. He only insists they keep what happened, and his future behavior a secret.