Ah, that summons! at which majesty welks and shrivels, the king and
soldier starts and cowers, and, armour and all, withers from the air!
But why has he not spoken before? why not now ere the cock could claim
him? He cannot trust the men. His court has forsaken his memory--crowds
with as eager discontent about the mildewed ear as ever about his
wholesome brother, and how should he trust mere sentinels? There is but
one who will heed his tale. A word to any other would but defeat his
intent. Out of the multitude of courtiers and subjects, in all the land
of Denmark, there is but one whom he can trust--his student-son. Him he
has not yet found--the condition of a ghost involving strange
difficulties.
Or did the horror of the men at the sight of him wound and repel him?
Does the sense of regal dignity, not yet exhausted for all the fasting
in fires, unite with that of grievous humiliation to make him shun their
speech?
But Horatio--why does the ghost not answer him ere the time of the cock
is come? Does he fold the cloak of indignation around him because his
son's friend has addressed him as an intruder on the night, an usurper
of the form that is his own? The companions of the speaker take note
that he is offended and stalks away.
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