Hamlet: Act 1, Scenes 1 & 2 Questions

1. What is the Ghost wearing when he comes onstage? When before, according to Horatio, had he been seenwearing it?
   
   The Ghost, when he comes onstage, is wearing the battle garments of the late king of Denmark, Hamlet's father (also named Hamlet). The late king had been seen in the same clothes and expression when he was battling the Polish.
   
2. Marcellus asks someone to “tell me…/Why this same strict and most observant watch/ So nightly toils the subject of the land…” What is the answer?
   The "whisper goes so" (rumor) as to why security has been increased is that the late king of Norway's (Fortinbras) son, also named Fortinbras, is gathering forces from the Norwegian countryside to reclaim the lands and titles his father lost to the older/currently-dead Hamlet.
   
3. What story from the past does Horatio relate?
   
   He talks about the supernatural occurrences that supposedly took place just before Julius Caesar was assassinated in court in ancient Rome that might happen again in Denmark.
   
4. What makes the ghost disappear?
   
   The rooster crowing (signaling dawn) & the guards threatening to stab it with their spears.
   
5. Note all of the different matters of court business that Claudius attends to at the opening of 1.2. How does he try to comfort Hamlet? Does it work?
   
   Claudius tries to comfort Hamlet by telling him that while his mourning was understandable (and admirable), it should end as soon as possible because Denmark did not die when the king did, and there is still business to attend to. He also asks Hamlet to stay in Denmark, rather than going back to Wittenberg, and remain Claudius's right-hand man. His method works on the surface, but once Hamlet is alone, he gets mopey fast.
    
6. In Hamlet’s first soliloquy (“O that this too too solid flesh would melt…”), what does he tell the audience is so upsetting to him?
   
   He is upset that his mother so willingly accepted Claudius (who Hamlet sees as inferior to his father) as the new King of Denmark and her husband.
    
7. “Foul deeds will rise,/ Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes” (~1.2.256-‐7) What does Hamlet mean by this?
   
   Hamlet means by that if someone committed treason and killed the king for one reason or another, that the truth will come out one way or another.