HAMLET                     This do swear,

So grace and mercy at your most need help you.

GHOST                        Swear.

HAMLET         Rest, rest, perturbed spirit. So, gentlemen,

With all my love I do commend me to you,

And what so poor a man as Hamlet is

May do t’express his love and friending to you

God willing shall not lack. Let us go in together

And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.

The time is out of joint; O cursed spite

That ever I was born to set it right!

Nay, come, let’s go together. (Exeunt.)         (1.5.177-188)

This do swear, concludes Hamlet, that you won’t say anything even if and when I start acting CRAZY. And a conclusion that’s conventional but also oddly touching in its concern: so grace and mercy at your most need help you; a prayer, a commendation to God, which is also a plea for grace and mercy for himself. Ghost still there though: SWEAR, from under the stage, but that’s him done. And presumably Horatio and Marcellus do swear again, their hands on Hamlet’s sword. They’re silent, now, unable to get a word in edgeways, but also overcome, drained, petrified; minds blown.

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit, Hamlet says to the Ghost, and again he might as well be speaking to himself. You’ve done what you can here. Sleep now. (He wishes he could.) He wrenches his focus back to his companions, with formal concern, and also a plea: so, gentlemen, with all my love I do commend me to you—please, listen to me, take on board everything I’ve said, if you have any regard for me at all—and what so poor a man as Hamlet is may do t’express his love and friending to you God willing shall not lack. I’ll repay your trust, and your loyalty and friendship and service, in whatever way I can.

Let us go in together. Time to head indoors, warm up; breakfast! Coffee, at least! And still your fingers on your lips, I pray. Remember: not a word. Not. A. Word. (They look at him, stunned. Say anything about—this?) A little self-reflective couplet—the only rhyme in the scene—as if attempting to contain, give some kind of order to all the hideous knowledge and big feelings. But that couplet itself expresses only disorder, and a sense of rueful impotence: the time is out of joint. Everything’s WRONG, dislocated, falling apart. A broken body, a world upside-down. O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right! And it’s down to me to fix it? That’s just not fair. I’m not sure that I’m up to it.

Nay come, let’s go together. Horatio and Marcellus are waiting for him to lead the way, waiting for him to come out of this little reverie—to act. Also, he’s the prince. No standing on ceremony, he says, we’ll all go in now. Hamlet knows he’s alone with his terrible knowledge and mission—but just now, he doesn’t have to be, for a bit.

And that’s the end of this utterly extraordinary scene, and the first act of Hamlet—which has taken me 97 posts to write about….