"smote the sledded Polacks"
Historical Allusion
Act 1,
Scene 1
Lines 58b-64
Marcellus
Horatio
Around 1250, a group of knights—including some Danish royalty—embarked on a crusade. Their objective was not to retake Palestine from the Muslim Ottoman Empire, but to attack the Eastern Orthodox Christians of Northern Europe, whom they considered to be pagans. The two forces clashed in a battle on a frozen lake near the Baltic Sea. If, as some critics think, Shakespeare is alluding to this battle, what does this add to the scene?