Horatio believes the ghost is a devil and warns Hamlet that it could lead him into trouble
Character development
Foreshadows that the ghost will cause Hamlet to go mad
It was believed that a demon would appear in a recognizable form when a person was in a time of need
Bad Omen o A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye/ In the most high and palmy state of Rome/ A little ere the mightiest Julius fell/ The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead/ Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets/ As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood/ Disasters in the sun; and the moist star/ Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands/ Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse/ And even the like precurse of fear’d events/ As harbingers preceding still the fates/ And prologue to the omen coming on/ Have heaven and earth together demonstrated/ Unto our climatures and countrymen. (1.1. 15-128)
Allusion to Julius Caesar
Foreshadows
Develops tragic mood
Elizabethan theories; hearing noises before a death occurred
Madness
o Alas, how