BARNARDO                            Sit down awhile,

And let us once again assail your ears

That are so fortified against our story

What we have two nights seen.

HORATIO        Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.

BARNARDO    Last night of all,

When yond same star that’s westward from the pole

Had made his course t’illume that part of heaven

Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

The bell then beating one –

Enter Ghost.                            (1.1.29-38)

Barnardo’s patient but persistent, interrupting Horatio: sit down awhile—just for a bit, OK?—and let us once again assail your ears that are so fortified against our story what we have two nights seen. A long sentence again, not drawing breath, leaving no room for objections. Please, just listen? I know we’ve already told you about this—we’re asking you to listen once again, yet again—but we’ve got to get through to you. Assail and fortified suggest siege warfare, appropriate to Horatio’s stubbornness (they’ve been trying to wear him down) but also appropriate to these soldiers—and perhaps the times, perhaps they’re on guard against a particularly live threat, perhaps they’re on a war footing? And we’ve seen this for two nights in a row, we didn’t just come running to you on a whim. Please, now you’re out here with us, can we just explain it all again?

Horatio capitulates, perhaps with a bit of exasperation, indulging them: oh well what a good idea, well, sit we down, can’t think of anything I’d rather do, and let us hear Barnardo speak of this. No, honestly, I entreat you. The floor is yours, we’re all ears.

Barnardo knows this is his big chance, his only chance. He’s got to be evocative, precise, compelling; he’s a military man making a report to a superior, but he’s also trying to persuade. Last night of all—just last night—when yond same star that’s westward from the pole had made his course t’illume that part of heaven where now it burns—Barnardo’s going to gesture, he’s trying to be as accurate as possible about the time, yes, it was when that star, to the west of the pole star, the northern star, had moved, in the way it does with the passing hours, so that it was where it is now, shining brightly (so the audience sees a starry night, dark and frosty—and they also imagine looking at something very high up and far away, there’s a bit of dazzle, a bit of cognitive dizziness at being taken up out of the theatre for a brief flash) Marcellus and myself—the both of us, Marcellus will nod here as Barnardo brings him in, Barnardo’s the one who’s good at the talking, but it’s all true, he was there, it’s just as Barnardo’s describing it—and then the bell then beating one—it had just struck one… Two authenticating circumstances, the position of the stars and the clock striking, I’m not making this up, please believe me…

Enter Ghost. Before Barnardo and Marcellus have had a chance to say what sort of thing it is, let alone describe it, ENTER GHOST…