What are they that would speak with me?
'High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasions of my sudden and more strange return. HAMLET.' He is back. Hamlet is coming back to Denmark.
Hamlet is coming back. He was traveling to England, but now he's returning.
hamlet returns coming back to denmark
Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.
Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.
Sailors. They have letters.
sailors they have letters
Let them come in.
Let them come in.
Show them in.
let them in
The sea voyage, the pirate attack, the boarding, the capture, the return — all of this happens between scenes, in the gap between Act 4 scene 4 and this letter. Shakespeare does not show it. He narrates it, briefly, in Hamlet's own words, in a letter. This is a striking choice: Hamlet's final soliloquy in 4-4 resolved to have only bloody thoughts, and his very next appearance (via letter) shows him in precisely the violent, decisive, action-driven mode he was wishing for. He did not decide to board the pirate ship after philosophical deliberation — he acted 'on the instant,' in a moment of 'compelled valour.' The adventure seems to have done something to him. The man who appears in 5-1 and 5-2 is calmer, more decisive, more fatalistic in the best sense — and the gap between 4-4 and 4-6 is where that change happened, invisible to the audience, narrated at one remove in a private letter. Shakespeare is suggesting that the change Hamlet needed could not happen on a stage, under the audience's gaze — it had to happen out at sea, off the map, in a space where no one was watching.
Horatio is the only person in Hamlet's world who is entirely trustworthy. The play establishes this in 3-2 when Hamlet explains why he can confide in Horatio: 'thou art e'en as just a man / As e'er my conversation coped withal.' Everyone else in Hamlet's life has been compromised — Gertrude by remarriage, Ophelia by her father's instructions, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern by Claudius's commissions. Horatio has nothing at stake. He is a scholar, a visitor, a man without property or political position at the Danish court. He has nothing to gain from betraying Hamlet and nothing to lose from loyalty. This scene shows why that matters: Hamlet's first act on escaping death is to write to Horatio. Not to his mother, not to any other friend. Horatio is the man Hamlet trusts to carry him back to Denmark, to witness what happens, and — as we learn in 5-2 — to tell his story afterward.
God bless you, sir.
God bless you, sir.
God bless you.
god bless you
Let him bless thee too.
And may God bless you too.
And you.
and you
He shall, sir, and’t please him. There’s a letter for you, sir. It
comes from th’ambassador that was bound for England; if your name be
Horatio, as I am let to know it is.
If God wills it, he will, sir. Here's a letter for you, sir. It's from the ambassador who was sailing for England. If your name is Horatio, as I've been told it is.
He will, sir, if it pleases him. Here's a letter for you. It's from the ambassador headed for England. You're Horatio, right?
letter for you from the ambassador for england
fellows some means to the King. They have letters for him. Ere we were
two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us
chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled
valour, and in the grapple I boarded them. On the instant they got
clear of our ship, so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt
with me like thieves of mercy. But they knew what they did; I am to do
a good turn for them. Let the King have the letters I have sent, and
repair thou to me with as much haste as thou wouldst fly death. I have
words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too
light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee
where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England:
of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.
He that thou knowest thine,
HAMLET.’
Come, I will give you way for these your letters,
And do’t the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.
Give the King the letters too. Get back to me as fast as you can—faster than you'd run from death. I have things to tell you that will leave you speechless, but even they're not big enough for what's happened. These sailors will bring you to me. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are going to England, and I have much to tell you about them. Goodbye. Your Hamlet. Come, I'll hurry these letters to the King, and I'll come back here quickly so you can bring me to where Hamlet is.
Give the King his letters too. Come to me as fast as you can. I have news for you—stuff that'll shock you silent. And it's still not even close to how big this really is. These sailors will show you where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are headed to England, and I have a lot to tell you about that. Goodbye. Come on, let me get these to the King. I'll be back here right away so you can bring me to Hamlet.
come to me fast i have things that will shock you rosencrantz and guildenstern england come back let's go
The Reckoning
The shortest scene in Act 4, and one of the most purely functional in the play — but it does significant work. It repositions Hamlet from 'in transit toward his death' to 'alive and returning,' and it does so in his own voice. The letter Hamlet sends Horatio is immediate, energetic, slightly over-excited in its telling of the pirate adventure — a man who has been in danger and survived it and cannot quite believe it yet. There is something different in this Hamlet's register: the paralyzed self-examiner of the soliloquies is not quite visible here. He sounds like a man who has been forced into action and discovered he is capable of it. The scene also establishes that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are gone — without Hamlet — which will matter enormously in 5-2.
If this happened today…
A friend who was being sent abroad under slightly suspicious circumstances texts from a stranger's phone: 'Long story, got picked up by some people on the highway who were heading back to town, managed to hitch a ride with them. Send you details when I see you. Coming home tomorrow. Don't tell anyone except you. Also there's some documents you should bring to the right people.' The friend calls immediately. The stranger's phone answers.