HORATIO       But, since so jump upon this bloody question

You from the Polack wars and you from England

Are here arrived, give order that these bodies

High on a stage be placed to the view,

And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world

How these things came about. So shall you hear

Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts,

Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters,

Of deaths put on by cunning, and for no cause,

And in this upshot purposes mistook

Fallen on th’inventors’ heads. All this can I

Truly deliver. (5.2.359-370)

Horatio knows that, exhausted and shocked as he is, this might be his only chance, he’s got to seize the moment: but, since so jump upon this bloody question—seeing as you’re here, in the immediate aftermath of this fatal quarrel—you from the Polack wars and you from England are here arrived—since you’ve converged upon this place, not quite by chance (and Horatio’s demonstrating that he knows who Fortinbras is, and a bit of the backstory, too—he was the one who filled in all the war stuff in the very first scene, after all)—and since you’re in charge, sort of, by virtue of rank and the fact that you’re, you know, ALIVE: give order that these bodies high on a stage be placed to the view. In the most brutally practical sense, Fortinbras has the manpower, and there are four bodies to be moved. And this needs to be public, ceremonial even; people need to see what’s happened here. (A metatheatrical resonance is unavoidable; what Horatio is proposing is, in a sense, a play, a play called Hamlet, about Hamlet, by Hamlet.) And they need to hear too, and hear it from me: and let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world how these things came about. No one yet knows—not here, not anywhere—the whole truth of what’s gone on. From this point, it’s as if Horatio’s channelling Hamlet, speaking from notes even, an act of ventriloquism, trying to do his friend justice by hitting all the right beats of the story. So shall you hear of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts—that’s the murder of old Hamlet, the marriage between Claudius and Gertrude, which Hamlet has always condemned as incestuous. And accidental judgements, casual slaughters—Polonius?—of deaths put on by cunning, and for no cause, and in this upshot purposes mistook fallen on th’inventors’ heads. That’s the poisoned rapier, the exchange of weapons, the poisoned cup; the scheme to have Hamlet killed which rebounded on Claudius himself, via Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, mere collateral damage. It’s all the headlines, kept just vague enough to pique the interest, keep the men with guns guessing. (But none of headlines quite describes Ophelia’s sad little death.) All this can I truly deliver. All of it; I can tell you this story, word for word, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. (In some productions, Horatio’s being threatened, or worse; he can also be bargaining with these promises of a sensational narrative.)