In the opening scene of Hamlet Shakespeare introduces us to vital background information that evokes the action of the main plot. The action begins when Marcellus asks the others "has this thing appear"d again tonight?" and Bernardo replies that he has seen nothing. Just as Bernardo starts to describe his visions the apparition appears. Bernardo notes that the ghost is "In the same figure, like the king that's dead" and then questions himself "Looks it not like the king". Horatio then questions the apparition "What are thou, that usurp'st this time of night/ Together with the fair and warlike form/ In which the majesty of buried Denmark/ Did sometimes march" the ghost then disappears and leaves the men astonished at what they have seen. Marcellus then questions "Is it not like the king", Horatio then tells the others "Such very armour he had on/ When he the ambitious Norway combated;/ So frown"d he once, when, in an angry parle,/ He smote the sledded Polack on the ice" Horatio also informs the others "In what particular thought to work I know not;/ But, in the gross and scope of my opinion/ This bodes some strange eruption to our state. Then Marcellus asks why the state has been recently disrupted by warlike preparations of all kinds. Horatio then answers "Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,/ Thereto prick"d on by a most emulate pride,/ Did forfeit, with his life, all those lands/ Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror" and now young Fortinbras plans to reclaim the Norwegian lands his late father lost to king Hamlet. Bernardo replies if it is really the late king's spirit why has it come back from the dead? "A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye" says Horatio about the ghost and likens its appearance to the ominous events in ancient Rome before the murder of Julius Caesar.
