(A march afar off [and a sound of shooting])

HAMLET         What warlike noise is this?

Enter OSRIC.

OSRIC Young Fortinbras with conquest come from Poland

To th’ambassadors of England gives

This warlike volley.   (5.2.333-336)

The stage has shrunk and shrunk, all eyes now on the dying Hamlet, cradled by his distraught friend Horatio—so there’s a particular violence and violation in the noise, drums, perhaps trumpets, and even the sound of shooting, which Hamlet (even in extremis) queries: what warlike noise is this? (what NOW?) Is this part of the conspiracy, a coup, something else? (In modern dress there can be the sound of helicopters; in film, paratroopers, marines abseiling in.) But the world has rushed into this intimate scene, like a shock of cold water, a blast of wind through a broken window. Osric brings the news: young Fortinbras with conquest come from Poland to th’ambassadors of England gives this warlike volley. It’s so PLOTTY: Fortinbras, named in the very first scene, encountered what seems like aeons ago, marching—but he’s here, he’s back, and he seems to be taking charge, greeting the English ambassadors (who?? oh yes, there was an abortive trip to England for Hamlet) with the sound of cannon. The interruption of emotion with story, the intrusion of such vastly different concerns—politics! war!—featuring unknown or anonymous characters—is beyond jarring, it’s a kind of cognitive violence. Everyone is exhausted, characters and audience, and now this? All that confusion, that overload—that’s a powerful, audacious dramatic effect, putting the audience in the position where they too cannot take anything more. There are very good reasons to cut Fortinbras and the ambassadors. But it’s a shame.