HORATIO                    This to me

In dreadful secrecy impart they did,

And I with them the third night kept the watch

Where, as they had delivered, both in time,

Form of the thing, each word made true and good,

The apparition comes. I knew your father,

These hands are not more like.

HAMLET                     But where was this?

MARCELLUS   My lord, upon the platform where we watch.         (1.2.205-212)

This to me in dreadful secrecy impart they did: they told me about what they’d seen and experienced, told me in strictest confidence, and I could see how terrified they were, both of what they’d seen and of telling me (this is why the secrecy is dreadful). And so I with them the third night kept the watch—I went out on guard duty with them, stayed up with them through the third night—where, as they had delivered, exactly as they’d said, both in time, form of the thing, each word made true and good, the apparition comes. It appeared at the time they’d said, and looked just as they’d described it. Every word they’d told me was confirmed; I can attest to it. I saw it with my own eyes. And I knew your father, these hands are not more like. This apparition—ghost—thing—was as like your dead father as my hands are like each other. His mirror image. It was him.

Hamlet’s after the confirmation of one more circumstance, which has in fairness been left slightly vague: but where was this? Even more, though, it’s a good indicator of trauma, which Shakespeare will use again: Horatio has just expounded something truly incredible—we’ve seen the ghost of your dead father!—and all Hamlet can manage to compute at first is, sorry, where did you say this was? My lord, upon the platform where we watch, Marcellus interjects; upon on the battlements where we’re on sentry duty. Horatio’s told the bare bones of the story and now the other two want to chip in, eager to be believed and understood.