HAMLET         The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,

Keeps wassail and the swaggering upspring reels,

And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down

The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.

HORATIO                                Is it a custom?

HAMLET         Ay, marry is’t,

But to my mind, though I am native here

And to the manner born, it is a custom

More honoured in the breach than the observance.          (1.4.8-16)

So, on the spooky, frozen midnight battlements, jumpy, waiting for a ghost who may or may not appear, Hamlet discourses of Danish drinking habits. What’s the cause of all that racket? The King—and this can be said with scare-quote-like disdain—doth wake tonight and takes his rouse, he’s going to be partying all night, a serious session. He keeps wassail and the swaggering upspring reels: they’ll be drinking toasts, playing drinking games, wild dancing even, until all hours. (This is a new side of Claudius, fun Claudius, rather than bureaucratic, efficient Claudius: Claudius has a crew of drinking buddies, apparently—unless this is all forced jollity. No way of knowing.) But, since you’re asking specifically about the cannon and the trumpets: as he drains his draught of Rhenish down, as he downs his wine in one (imported German wine at that) the kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out the triumph of his pledge. Drums and trumpets as he shows the empty glass, upends it, puts it on his head, and there’s uproar and cheering and banging on the tables. Then he goes again. SKOL!

Love Horatio, so polite, so scholarly and quasi-anthropological in his bafflement: is it a custom? Do people really do this sort of thing as a regular and expected part of their socialising? (Horatio’s Wittenberg is all about the library; Hamlet’s, perhaps not quite so much?) Perhaps a slight grin of sympathy at his fellow student: ay, marry is’t, yes, it’s a thing here, totally normal. But to my mind, though I am native here and to the manner born—but actually, even though I’m Danish born and bred, and used to it, it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance. It’s a bit much, isn’t it? It’d be better not to do this sort of thing. (Hamlet’s saying, in a way, showing a touching vulnerability, slight embarrassment, an adolescent note, looking at his home, his culture for the first time through the eyes of others: but I’m not like that, I don’t really like that sort of thing, I’m like you, don’t think I’m like them.)