Enter BARNARDO and FRANCISCO, two sentinels.

BARNARDO    Who’s there?

FRANCISCO    Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

BARNARDO    Long live the King.

FRANCISCO                            Barnardo?

BARNARDO                                                    He.

FRANCISCO    You come most carefully upon your hour.

BARNARDO    ’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO    For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold

And I am sick at heart.          (1.1.1-7)

Jumpy jumpy: who’s there?! Yelled in panic? Or spoken with some semblance of mechanical authority, this is just what sentries do, they ask, who’s there? But it’s dark, Barnardo can’t see—that’s part of what this command establishes. Do the guards have torches? Perhaps, in modern dress at least, and if it’s modern dress, this could be a standoff, guns cocked. Francisco’s panicking more, perhaps, or at least pulling rank, is this a crisis, is this a spy, an intruder: nay, answer me. You tell me who you are, you go first. Stand and unfold yourself. Don’t make any sudden moves, identify who you are, your business, demonstrate that you’ve got the authority to be here. Name, rank, and serial number. Unfold means tell, narrate, but it has a material quality here; are the sentries muffled, hooded, in addition to its being dark? No faces visible, and it’s cold, as well as dark. Long live the King. A password, by the sound of it, an agreed form of identification and reassurance. Guns or pikes or halberds can be lowered: Barnardo, is that you? He. Yes, it’s me. (It’s me, you idiot, what are you being so jumpy for?)

You come most carefully upon your hour: right on time, then. Yes, ’tis now struck twelve. Ah, midnight, the witching time of night. And a borderline, between day and day, night and night, an invisible border just crossed. Sentries, patrolling a border or a boundary too. So get thee to bed, Francisco. Go and warm up and get a grip of yourself, stop freaking out, man. For this relief much thanks. Grateful to you, mate—’tis bitter cold. Yes, it’s cold, and that’s all, that’s the only thing that’s making me shivery, jumpy, standing here by myself in the cold and the dark. Then a concession, an admission: and I am sick at heart. It’s not just the cold. I’m not in a good place.

Ah, Francisco, you have this tiny part, and shortly you’ll be off to double something else—you’re already wearing the costume under your cloak—but in this exchange (and you didn’t, quite, answer that question, who’s there, did you?) you’ve helped to set the tone. Fear, anxiety, watchfulness and waking. Darkness.