HAMLET         Something too much of this:

There is a play tonight before the King –

One scene of it comes near the circumstance

Which I have told thee of my father’s death.

I prithee when thou seest that act afoot,

Even with the very comment of thy soul

Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt

Do not itself unkennel in one speech

It is a damned ghost that we have seen

And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan’s stithy.      (3.2.70-80)

Something too much of this: that’s quite enough about that then; Hamlet can send himself up a bit for his emotional outpouring to Horatio, but one hopes that there might be a hug in there too; Hamlet is so, so lonely. But on to the next thing, the crucial thing. There is a play tonight before the King—yes, yes, Horatio knows that, in some productions he’s dressed for it already, evening dress all the way—and, one scene of it comes near the circumstance which I have told thee of my father’s death. Ya-hah. Yep. That’s the plan, the big plan. Staging a version of my father’s actual murder, not just the general scenario but some of the precise details. And this is what I need you to do: I prithee when thou seest that act afoot (you’ll know what’s going on, I described it all to you) even with the very comment of thy soul observe my uncle. Don’t take your eyes off him, make him your only focus. Watch him, not the play. Because if his occulted guilt—that he’s been concealing, in deep, deep cover—doth not itself unkennel in one speech, reveal itself, all at once, a hell-hound loosed and hell to pay in the space of a single speech, well, then, it is a damned ghost that we have seen, a devil, an evil spirit, not my father’s wronged and righteous ghost. And, that being so, my imaginations are as foul as Vulcan’s stithy—it’s all the product of my dirty, suspicious mind, making things up, terrible things, as dirty and dark as the blacksmith-god’s forge. (Vulcan was the cuckold of the gods; perhaps that has some bearing here too: he too entrapped his wife, Venus, with Mars her lover.) This is it, Horatio, and I need you, I can’t do it without you.