A feast is going on inside the castle in Denmark. The king had died and his brother Claudius was king now. And he had married Gertrude, who had been the dead king’s wife.
The new king begins to speak in front of them all. He puts the loss of a brother and this marriage side by side in one sentence. One eye weeping and the other glad, he calls it.
Then he goes straight on to the business of the country. Somebody is to be sent about the movements on the Norwegian side. The air in the room moves along as though nothing had happened.