HORATIO But look, the morn in russet mantle clad
Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
Break we our watch up and by my advice
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
Unto young Hamlet, for upon my life
This spirit dumb to us will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
MARCELLUS Let’s do’t, I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most convenient. (Exeunt.) (1.1.165-174)
The dark, frightened claustrophobia of the scene suddenly opens out as the sun, apparently, rises and the night is over: but look, says Horatio, perhaps gesturing outwards, making the world bigger as the light grows, the sun’s rising. The morn in russet mantle clad walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill. It’s a homely, rustic image, picking up a little on Marcellus’s fairies and witches, as the sun is a farmworker, warmly wrapped in homespun as he heads to work. (Russet is the word used for grey-brown undyed wool, it suggests the clouds through which the sun is rising, not the orange glow of the dawn.) Imagining the dew-covered ground, seeing the hill on the horizon brings them all back down to earth, and so Horatio can propose a course of action: break we our watch up and by my advice let us impart what we have seen tonight unto young Hamlet. That’s what we should do: we need to tell the prince what’s going on, thus reinforcing in passing that this prince, like Fortinbras, shares a name with his father. He needs to know. And, upon my life this spirit dumb to us will speak to him. The ghost wouldn’t talk to us but I bet it’ll talk to him. Then a bit more formality: do you consent we shall acquaint him with it as needful in our loves, fitting our duty? Horatio’s making it clear that he’s not going to act alone, that he wants consensus here from these soldiers, and reassurance that they too think this would be the right thing to do, both because of the affection that they have for the prince, and also because they have an obligation to do so, as soldiers and loyal subjects. (Prince Hamlet inspires both love and loyalty, it seems.)
Marcellus agrees, with relief (and presumably Barnardo nods along?): let’s do’t, I pray. Please, yes, that’s exactly what we should do, and I this morning know where we shall find him most convenient. I know exactly where he’ll be—and there’s a sense of urgency here, suggesting that they can go straight to Hamlet, right now.
And that’s the end of the scene, an absolutely cracking opener, with a ghost and a long, meandering historical back-story, the precise relevance of which is still unclear—no sign of the eponymous Prince Hamlet, but plenty of paranoia, fear, and suspense. (And NONE or at least very little of this opening scene is likely to match up with ‘the story of Hamlet’ as it might appear in a programme synopsis.)