Hamlet - Act 1 / Scene 1 SUMMARY

Alright. The first scene of Hamlet is short and pretty easy to understand--if you put your mind to it. However, to save you potential trouble, I'm going to summarize it anyway.

Don't worry. We got this.

My copy of Hamlet, courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library (with detailed explanation notes included!), summarizes Act 1 / Scene 1 as:

"On the guards' platform at Elsinore, Horatio waits with Barnardo and Marcellus to question a ghost that has twice before appeared. The Ghost, in the form of the late King Hamlet of Denmark, appears but will not speak. Horatio decides to tell his fellow students, Prince Hamlet, about the Ghost's appearance."

Really, though, you don't need that long of a summary. This scene is pretty to understand as a whole in one sentence.

My One-Sentence Summary: Dead King Hamlet's ghost arrives and freaks out Hamlet's BFF Horatio and the guards of the palace, and they decide to tell Hamlet (the Prince of Denmark) about it.

In-Depth Summary:

Okay, so at the start of Scene 1, two sentinels--a fancy word for guard--stand at the royal palace of Denmark. Their names are Francisco and Barnardo, but I might call then Guard #1 and Guard #2, respectively, when I inevitably forget their names later or get tired of typing them.

Guard #2 somehow mistakes Guard #1 for an impostor because people break into the Denmark palace all the time.

The two men greet each other. Horatio (Hamlet's BFF) and Marcellus (Guard #3) enter. Guards #1 and 2 go "Who's there?". Horatio and Marcellus go "Us" and everyone says hi. Guard #1 leaves because he's not that important.

Horatio in his Sunday best

Guard #3 is just confused

(Side Note: Horatio is the Morpheus of the Shakespeare Matrix. He talks really cryptically and answers questions such as "Is Horatio there?" with "A piece of him". It doesn't make sense, and I'm sorry. I am not a master of Shakespeare, so I will probably be little help deciphering the weirdness of Horatio. I'll do my best, though.)

To continue, the three men that are left cryptically talk about some "thing" that has appeared twice before and may appear that night. Horatio is a grouchy skeptic and claims the guards' minds are playing tricks on them. Guard #3 convinced him come to see if the apparition is real.

Guard #2 tells their woeful tale of meeting a ghost the last two nights. Midway through the story, Guard #3 dramatically cries "Look, it's a bird! It's a plane!" and points.

Lo and behold, Dead King Hamlet's ghost appears. The three men, understandably, freak out. Horatio begs the ghost to speak. It doesn't and floats away to whatever ghost realm it came from.

The men sit in shock for a bit, Horatio especially. They talk for a bit in a dialogue that basically goes:

Marcellus: Looks like the dead king, right?
Horatio: Yeah, bro. He even had on the armor he wore when he needed armor for fighting.
Marcellus: True dat.
Horatio: You know I've got a bad feeling about this ghost stuff. It seems like something bad is about to happen in Denmark. P.S. Did you guys catch my foreshadowing?
Guards #2 & 3: Yes.
Horatio: Yay! Now let us talk for several minutes about our dead king's relationship to Fortinbras, the prince of Norway, and their old war feuds.

(Side Note: Basically, Norway and Denmark had a fight. Dead King Hamlet won and got a bunch of land that he didn't have before. Prince Fortinbras of Norway wants the lands back now that Dead King Hamlet is dead.)

Horatio rants more about foreshadowing and bad omens (comparing them to the bad luck that befell Julius Caesar when he was assassinated, no less!).

Dead King Hamlet's ghost reappears another two minutes later because why the heck not? (He just likes to mess with people). Horatio and the two guards freak out, again:

Horatio: But soft! It's back.
Ghost: (breaks fourth wall) "But soft" means "but wait a minute". (back to internal thoughts) Anyway, look at these trippin' fools. LOL, I'm out again. Let them suffer.
Horatio: Wait, please don't leave! Let's play a game. Simon says speak if you know of a good thing that must be done, if you know info that will change our country's fate, etc.
Ghost: Nope, bye.
Guard #3: Should I stab it?
Horatio: Sure, I mean if it will stand still, yeah.
Guard #2: STAB
Guard #3: STAB STAB

We all know they threw their weapons like this.

Of course they miss because Dead King Hamlet is a ghost and ghosts are not tangible. Dead King Hamlet floats his way out of there. The three other men assume it's because dawn is coming. Apparently, Danish ghosts only operate at night.

We also all know Dead King Hamlet's ghost was like this.

Horatio now believes the ghost is real. He decides they should tell his BFF Hamlet about it because they have no secrets, and he believes the spirit will speak to its son. Stalker Guard #3 says he know where Hamlet is, and they depart.