“What brought you here?” asked Hamlet, when he had greeted his friend kindly.
“I came, my lord, to see your father's funeral.”
“I think it was to see my mother's wedding,” said Hamlet, bitterly. “My father! We shall not look upon his like again.”
“My lord,” answered Horatio, “I think I saw him yesternight.”
Then, while Hamlet listened in surprise, Horatio told how he, with two gentlemen of the guard, had seen the King's ghost on the battlements. Hamlet went that night, and true enough, at midnight, the ghost of the King, in the armor he had been wont to wear, appeared on the battlements in the chill moonlight. Hamlet was a brave youth. Instead of running away from the ghost he spoke to it--and when it beckoned him he followed it to a quiet place, and there the ghost told him that what he had suspected was true. The wicked Claudius had indeed killed his good brother the King, by dropping poison into his ear as he slept in his orchard in the afternoon.
“And you,” said the ghost, “must avenge this cruel murder-- on my wicked brother. But do nothing against the Queen-- for I have loved her, and she is your mother. Remember me.”
Then seeing the morning approach, the ghost vanished.
“Now,” said Hamlet, “there is nothing left but revenge. Remember thee--I will remember nothing else--books, pleasure, youth--let all go--and your commands alone live on my brain.”
So when his friends came back he made them swear to keep the secret of the ghost, and then went in from the battlements, now gray with mingled dawn and moonlight, to think how he might best avenge his murdered father.