Something strange happens each night at a castle in Denmark. The men on the walls have seen a thing. It looks exactly like the dead king.
The same thing came two nights running. The watch fetches a man called Horatio to stand with them. He has been to school, so he might be able to judge a thing like this.
On the third night it comes again. Horatio speaks to it and it goes without answering. This must be told to the king’s son, he says.
Up on the Walls
This is after the feast in chapter 41. Hamlet was still inside the castle and still in black. Horatio comes to him and tells him about the night before. Hamlet goes up onto the walls himself that night. It was cold and dark.
The thing appears. It is in the armour his father wore when he was alive. And it beckons Hamlet to come apart with it.
Horatio holds him back and says not to follow. It might lead him to the edge of a cliff. Hamlet shakes him off and goes.
What the Ghost Said
Alone with him, it begins. It says it comes from a place where it is paying for what it did. And it tells him how it died.
While it slept in an orchard, its brother poured poison into its ear. Everyone believes a serpent stung him. That serpent now wears the crown, it says.
It asks to be avenged, and attaches one condition. His mother is not to be touched. Leave her to heaven and to her own mind, it says. As the day comes it says to remember it, and is gone.
Out of Joint
Left alone, Hamlet almost collapses into speech. He swears over and over that he will not forget what he has just heard. Then he says this.
“The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!” (Act 1, Scene 5)
There are two things mixed into that line. That it must be set right, and that it should not have to be him. He says he must, and resents having to, in the same breath. Why this play takes so long is inside that one sentence.
Deciding to Act Mad
Horatio and the watch come running up. Hamlet does not tell them what he heard. He makes them promise two things instead.
That they will tell nobody what they saw tonight. And that however strangely he behaves, they will show no sign of knowing. He has decided to act mad.
The reason is simple. He has not verified anything. There is no way to know whether what the ghost said is true. Meanwhile he will become a man nobody guards themselves against, and watch.
Today, The Story You Want
What Hamlet is told is exactly the story he already wanted to be true. In chapter 41 he hated his uncle and resented his mother. And the thing on the walls hands him the answer that fits that mind.
What he does here sets the character of the whole play. He does not draw a sword. He starts looking for a way to check. People often read that as a man who cannot make up his mind.
It can be read another way. The more a story is one you already want to believe, the more evidence it needs. Because wanting to believe feels like evidence. That is the question this part will turn over for seventeen chapters.
In the next chapter he starts acting mad. And in a room he thinks is empty he talks at length about death.