Background As Horatio, Barnardo, and Marcellus confront and then discuss the ghost that has appeared to them, they demonstrate some superstitions and beliefs that they have about ghosts.
Directions Reread the following lines and describe what assumptions the speakers are making about the ghost and ghosts in general.
Lines: “In what particular thought to work I know not, but in the gross and scope of my opinion, this [seeing the ghost] bodes some strange eruption to our state.”
Assumption(s):
Lines: “If there be any good thing to be done that may to thee do ease, and grace to me, speak to me; if thou are privy to thy country’s fate, which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, oh speak! Or if thou has uphoarded …show more content…
1. “Upon our first, he sent out to suppress his nephew’s levies, which to him appeared to be a preparation ’gainst the Polack. . . .”
a. What did the King of Norway send?
b. The King of Norway believed that his nephew was rallying troops for war with what country?
2. “But better looked into, he truly found it was against your highness. Whereat grieved, that so his sickness, age, and impotence was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests on Fortinbras. . . .”
a. Who was Fortinbras’s army really preparing to go to war with?
b. What did the King of Norway do in order to rebuke Fortinbras once he discovered Fortinbras’s true intentions?
c. Describe the King of Norway’s health.
3. “Which he [Fortinbras], in brief, obeys. . . and, in fine, makes vow before his uncle never more to give th’assay of arms against you. . . .” What was Fortinbras’s response to the King’s rebuke?
4. “Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy, gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee and his commission to employ those soldiers so levied, as before, against the Polack, with an entreaty, herein further shown, that it might please you to give quiet pass through your dominions for