RALPH: Well, Sarah, Shakespeare certainly hasn't wasted any time. Right from the beginning he has created an atmosphere of amazement and fright.

SARAH: That's right, Ralph. Even in the opening line of the play Shakespeare turns on the tension.

RALPH: It's the middle of the night and the soldier Bernardo is coming to take over the watch. You would expect the sentinel on duty, Francisco, would hear him coming and call out a challenge.

SARAH: But Bernardo is on edge; it is he who cries out the opening line of the play, "Who's there?"

RALPH: We soon learn why Bernardo is so nervous. This "dreaded sight", as Marcellus calls it, appears once again.

SARAH: The soldiers, frightened by this ghostly image, have invited Horatio along because he is an educated "scholar".

RALPH: If this thing turns out to be an evil spirit, Horatio should know the proper Latin exorcism to drive it away.

SARAH: Marcellus prompts Horatio to speak to the ghost because, as everyone knew, ghosts will only speak after they have been spoken to.

RALPH: But the ghost doesn't respond; it's insulted and stalks away. Perhaps it is a devil, and retreated when Horatio challenged it in the name of heaven.

SARAH: But what if it really is the spirit of the dead king? What might Horatio have said that insulted it?

RALPH: "What art thou that usurp'st this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form in which the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee, speak!"

SARAH: Usurp means to take something to which you have no right. Horatio is saying the ghost has no right to be on the castle, nor to assume the image of the dead king.

RALPH: But in Shakespeare's day the word usurp was generally used for one specific situation: when someone seized the crown to which he had no legal claim.

SARAH: So a king would never appreciate being called an usurper, no matter in what sense the word was being used.

RALPH: In modern english, we have only one form of the second person pronoun — you. But in Shakespeare's time you had a second form, thou, which was used when addressing people of lower social status.

SARAH: And this is how Horatio addresses the ghost, "What art thou." Hardly the way to speak to a king.

RALPH: And finally, Horatio commands the ghost, "I charge thee speak." Kings were not in the habit of taking orders — from anyone.