Act I Scene 4 - French Rock Opera

Johnny Hallyday's rock anthem for this Scene leaves the Ghost for later and concentrates on the King's rouse, turning it into a full-blown orgy. You can hear the song HERE, but the words follow, and then my attempt at an English translation. Excuse the doggerel. As usual, I've not tried to reproduce the meter or turn into a good song.

L'orgie
Allumer les lanternes rouges
Le palais se transforme en bouge
La viande est rouge, le vin est rouge
Le sang est rouge, les sexes bougent

Le vin couve et l’orgie s’attise
Les rires deviennent gras comme des porcs
Les voiles de deuil font du striptease
Le noir devient multicolore

refrain:
Du beau, du bon, du grand roi
Voyez mon beau père le crapaud
Du beau, du bon, du grand roi
Grossir et devenir pourceau

Les doigts gras tachent les corsages
Ils glissent de seins jusqu’en croupes
Les mains préparent le voyage
Les peaux s’appellent, les corps se groupent

D’après les mains il sont bien douze
A s’emmêler en sarabande
Ces apôtres de la partouze
Si pleins, si saouls, qu’aucun ne bande

refrain

Ce chien de roi, ce roi des chiens
La queue en baguette de tambour
Qui en rotant du vin du Rhin
Prend la reine et lui fait l’amour

refrain

The Orgy
Light all the red lanterns
The palace becomes a dive
The meat is red, the wine is red
The blood is red, sexes move

The wine smoulders and the flames of the orgy are fanned
The laughs becomes as coarse as hogs
The veils of mourning do a striptease
Black turns to many colors

refrain:
The handsome, the good, the great king
See my stepfather the toad
The handsome, the good, the great king
Fatten and become a swine

Greasy fingers stain corsages
Slip from breasts to rump
Hands prepare their voyage
Skins call each other, bodies get together

From the hands, they must be a dozen
Mixing together in a racket
These apostles of the party
So full, so drunk, that none can get an erection

refrain

This dog of a king, this king of dogs
His tail like a drumstick
That, belching the wine of the Rhine,
Takes the queen and makes love to her

refrain

Hallyday creates strong, almost surreal images that may well be in Hamlet's mind. Lanterns cast a red light that makes the scene hellish in its carnality, at once about lust and gluttony. He also brings back the irony of the funereal wedding, with black veils coming off in a most lascivious way. Animal imagery is equally dominant, in line with Hamlet later calling Claudius a beast.

Hallyday/Hamlet sings all the words except "The handsome, the good, the great king", which the chorus sings. They may be the participants of the orgy in this case. Though the line is entirely ironic, Hamlet himself cannot bring himself to say them. The rouse is much more extreme than in staged productions, but with only songs to recreate the feeling of the play, it is fitting that Hallyday has gone for the operatic.

Act I Scene 4 - Classics Illustrated

The Original
The "series for boys" continues to put heavy emphasis on the Ghost as a supernatural element, opening the scene with a splash page. Of course, it's been distilled to thing single speech, cutting almost all interaction with Horatio and Marcellus, including the notion of the King's rouse (which is not particularly age-appropriate for the original Classics Illustrated). When Hamlet decides to follow the Ghost, note how he does not draw his sword or threaten his allies in any way.
The Ghost's gesture is slightly disturbing however. As usual, Classics Illustrated reduces the play to its plot points and most famous speeches (and yet, no "rotten in the state of Denmark").

The Berkley version
Mandrake likewise doesn't take up page real estate with the King's rouse, but as his strength is in setting a mood, he does start the scene where it should. The three friends are sitting around a fire in the cold and misty wastes of his Denmark, and Hamlet looks bored. An interesting idea... has he given up hope that this Ghost is real? It would help sell the surprise of the Ghost's appearance, except that in comics, all panels exist simultaneously on the page, and readers would have seen it coming.
Though Horatio's warnings are cut from the book, Mandrake gives us a visual sense of the danger. The Ghost walks through the stream (which resonates with Ophelia's death), forcing Hamlet to take the bridge, and they are soon climbing a precarious exterior staircase. The cliff, the flood... their essence is here even if they are not mentioned. As with the classic version, Mandrake's Hamlet doesn't draw his sword in this scene.
It strikes me that this makes all the characters dramatically weaker, either ineffectual and unable to impact the story (Horatio and Marcellus), or toothless and far less dangerous (Hamlet). This is a legitimate interpretation (if rather boring). The characters ARE ineffectual. Beyond Hamlet's delay of his revenge, Horatio and Marcellus cannot resolve the Ghost's dilemma by themselves, cannot prevent Hamlet from following it (despite being two men, one of which is an armed soldier) and in Marcellus' case, dropping out of the play once he swears an oath to say nothing (indeed, a character without lines isn't really in the play). Horatio may be the play's great survivor, but one of his last moments is a failed suicide.

Not to say this is all contained in these few panels, but looking ahead to the rest of the play, these choices make some sense.

Act I Scene 4 - Tennant (2009)

Scene 4 begins with only Marcellus and Horatio in view and Hamlet popping out from behind them. The theme of the scene is surprises, and you could say every character enters from out of nowhere, especially if you're a member of the Hamlet family. The King's cannon shots, for example, actually make you jump. Not so say Claudius physically appears, but he's noisy enough to be heard in a scene in which he doesn't feature. That actually says something about the disrupting nature of the character (at least to the more quiet and contemplative Hamlet, whose father figure is, in this scene, completely silent). The staging adds fireworks to this cannon shot (in keeping with its modernism) and seems to enjoy them in spite of Hamlet's disapproval. Hamlet's speech about Danish reputation is cut, the loss of which I've decried before, but it does allow the friendship to breathe here. Horatio is not truly chided for enjoying the light show.

This is all Shakespeare's cover for the entrance of the Ghost, of course. A distraction until the next scare. The Ghost comes from behind the camera, so out of the fourth wall if you will, and very early separates Hamlet from his friends. This allows Hamlet's speech to be much more intimate as he is cornered by the corpse of his father. Usually shouting at the Ghost from a distance, the staging here creates entirely new opportunities. Hamlet actually takes on a somewhat childish voice, returned to childhood by his father's appearance. Perhaps can we see something of their relationship in this, as it is legitimate to see Hamlet Sr., as written, as a rather sinister parent.
The Ghost walks right out of Hell and into "cold" Denmark, represented by his steaming cloak. A great effect that was apparently created in the stage version as well, with Patrick Stewart being fitted with a smoke machine. The Ghost eventually points to a direction and walks towards it, with Hamlet following. The stage version scored each of the Ghost's gestures with a tolling bell, very ominous, but this is not used in the film's soundtrack.

When his friends try to stop him, he manages to draw Marcellus' dress sword out of its scabbard and threatens them with it.
A clever way to follow the stage direction despite the modern dress. They also make more of a meal out of his threatening gestures, almost stabbing Horatio, who falls to the ground to avoid the blow. It better motivates his fear in the last part of the scene. He's not just afraid of the Ghost (which he has faced twice now, after all), but of Hamlet himself. His final "Heaven will direct it" here becomes a question. He's perhaps hoping that Marcellus will let things go, but knows he'll probably follow. This makes Horatio less eager to leave his friend to his fate.

Act I Scene 4 - Fodor (2007)

There's not much left of Scene 4 in Fodor's Hamlet either. As the trio waits for the witching hour, there is no cause to speak of any kind of "king's rouse". This is a particularly decadent Elsinore, and it is doubtful this Hamlet would retain his puritanical values. The three characters do not, in fact, go much beyond discussing the weather and what time it is. Horatio and Marcellus remain intriguing in their very modern aloofness, but their parts are soon over. Instead of the usual appearance of the Ghost, fearful prayers and Hamlet's headlong jump into the dark, the film goes for a more supernatural sequence. Time stands still. Hamlet notices his friends are frozen in the moment. He then has a vision of himself as a young boy, prancing through Elsinore House in the harsh white sunlight this film associates with the ghost world.
Then he is there too. Flash cuts move him from room to room, have him confront his younger self, until he is alone. And then he gets hit across the face by an invisible hand a few times before the Ghost physically appears.
This is a much more malevolent Ghost than the one we're used to, which may put even more doubt on his tale. If the Ghost is evil, did he perhaps not deserve the death he got even if he's telling the truth? Could Fodor's Hamlet delay his action for more nihilist reasons? Does it matter if his father is avenged? Is he worth avenging only in that Claudius is just as deserving of death? Does Hamlet care either way? By corrupting "Denmark" so entirely, Fodor levels the playing field between good and evil. There is, in effect, no good. If all deaths are deserved, is this still a tragedy?

And yet, there are those shots of Hamlet as a child, speaking to a happy childhood. Are we then to understand that Hamlet Sr.'s time in hell is the reason behind his present corruption? Scene 5 will have him say "I am thy father's spirit", not "thy father". What is the distinction? How far removed from the man's life is his traumatized soul? We'll try to answer these questions when we look more closely at Scene 5 itself and actually hear the Ghost speak.

Act I Scene 4 - Hamlet 2000

Act 4 is pretty much excised from Hamlet 2000, using instead wordless sequences to tell the story. The first sequence has Claudius and Gertrude getting frisky in their limo while Hamlet watches them from the facing seat.This, along with the red carpet/press walk that follows acts as the equivalent of the "King's rouse". There's clearly a party atmosphere in which Hamlet does not share, and if there's a "tradition" here, it's that of enjoying the public eye. Hamlet, when confronted with journalists, says nothing. He is completely disconnected from the way things are done. His parents, in this instance, prove to be extremely selfish beings, which is in tune with the modern view this film takes of the play's characters. There is a strong Gen X vs. Baby Boomer vibe here, where the GenXer, Hamlet, won't buy into the system promoted by his more materialistic Boomer parents. Obviously, this has nothing to do with Shakespeare's intent, nevertheless, it's an interesting filter to see the play through if one accepts it as "universal". Different impulses may have driven the generation gap in Shakespeare's day, and yet a gap did exist. Applying a modern day motivation to that gap is one way of updating the play for each successive audience.

In any case, cutting all the dialog referring to the rouse and its effect on the Danish reputation was almost necessary since it doesn't quite make sense in the world of New York's Elsinore.

Horatio and the soldiers aren't waiting with Hamlet in this version. Instead, he's crashed in his apartment, and they wake him at the appointed hour from the "platform" (or security station).
Since there is no need to explain the rouse to them, they would have little to talk about anyway. The biggest change is that they're not present to try and stop Hamlet from following his father's Ghost. Sure, it avoids mention of cliffs and other terrain not present in New York, but it also makes the entire group far less afraid of the Ghost. Once they've accepted its existence, they don't really fear it. These are characters who might have grown up on horror movies, after all. They might have been willing to be with Hamlet at the appropriate moment, but he is more remote than most other Hamlets. He has cut himself off from them in advance, and so when the Ghost shows up, they haven't yet gone up to the apartment.
Hamlet sees the Ghost on his balcony and lets out the first few lines of the "Angels and ministers of grace" prayer. There's a neat match between the word "hell" and a fiery explosion on the television. These fires continue in a loop (they're part of Hamlet's stock footage collection) through the next scene, creating a hellish, in between the moments, space for Scene 5 to take place in.

Act I Scene 4 - Kline '90

The more I move forward with this project, the less worthy Kevin Kline's performance as Hamlet becomes. I never really liked his take on it, but in comparison to the others, it's pretty ghastly. When I'm more interested in every other character, something is wrong. Worse still, I actively disagree with the director's decisions (which is also Kline). The trend continues in Scene 4, which has a major cut, taking out the speech that comes after "more in the breach than the observance". The scene loses a lot in the process. Hamlet now only tepidly disagrees with the Danish tradition and doesn't lay very much of it at Claudius' feet. Obviously, it cuts out any deeper meaning to the rouse, since Hamlet doesn't expound on it.

Horatio has an interesting line reading in this section, responding to Hamlet's claims that "The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold." with the usual "It is a nipping and an eager air." But he makes it sound like he's disagreeing with Hamlet. Not aggressively, but in a "really? you think? maybe you could say that" kind of way. Hamlet's air bites, but Horatio's only nips. "Eager air" is likewise a much more positive outlook on the situation. Two points of view are presented, one much more negative than the other. I hadn't noticed it before.

It's in this scene that the Ghost appears for the first time in this version.
He comes out of the shadows/mists and waves Hamlet forward. Not much to it. Kline's Hamlet behaves strangely however. He seems enraptured, smiling throughout the sequence. He has no fear, no apprehension (despite his lines underscoring the risk of a hellish Ghost), and doesn't hear his friends' warnings. And when he breaks away from them, he has no weapon, so "I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!" is a threat he cannot make good on. And yet they let him go. This is another of those staging problems I have with this version.

Kline's Hamlet, in my mind, is an ineffectual one. He doesn't retard the action because he overthinks, or can't decide, or is in love with his own character, but because resolving the action is beyond his abilities. This is a lame duck Hamlet. Look at this scene again through that filter. This Hamlet doesn't convince us that Claudius is corrupt based on the rouse. Horatio questions the simplest claim that it is bitterly cold outside. He lets down his guard completely when faced with the Ghost. He has no means to carry out his threat to turn Horatio and the soldiers into ghosts. And they let him go, as if he can't do any harm anyway. Everything is played to weaken Hamlet, a terrible idea, but still a legitimate one. If done on purpose, of course.

The trade-off
I find that when the performances aren't really there, I tend to listen to the text more, and for the first time, I hear clever little things Shakespeare's done. For example, in "Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd", the Bard plays on the how "health" and "hell" sound the same. Hamlet calls the Ghost a "questionable shape", and follows the specter to question it. There are puns upon puns in Shakespeare's work. At least Kline allows me to discover them.

Act I Scene 4 - Zeffirelli '90

The King's rouse is played rather differently in Zeffirelli's heavily cut adaptation in that it acts as the wedding banquet (Claudius even lets out the "cannon to the heavens" line). As such, it makes it all the harder to understand what Hamlet's problem is with this tradition. One even has to wonder why one of the guards is given Horatio's line asking about the custom. It looks like any banquet, and even Ophelia attends. Zeffirelli, ever efficient, uses the scene to give several characters meaningful glances at each other - the royal couple is happy, Polonius makes ingratiating smiles at them, and Ophelia timidly responds to Gertrude's toast. While we shouldn't be surprised at Hamlet's refusal to attend (he's against the marriage itself), it is odd that these simple revels would turn the Danish nation into a laughing stock.
Most of the lines from this section are cut, but he notably ends the speech as a soliloquy. All his companions ever hear is the idea that Danes are clepped drunkards based on the custom. Everything else (cut down to its essentials, of course) is said in a private moment as Hamlet watches the party from a grate. Where other Hamlets perhaps give sermons, this one has a personal realization about the nature of a man's flaws. It plays not unlike Jacobi's, but doesn't include any others. Horatio continues to be sidelined in this version, as Hamlet doesn't let him into his innermost thoughts.
Finally, the Ghost appears. First as a face in the dark, then from afar. The viewer may not at first spot him. Though there is no doubt Horatio and the guards see something, the murky lighting and Hamlet's constant shifting between manic elation and fear support the idea of an imaginary Ghost, one that lives only in Hamlet's mind. In this version, we have no proof that Horatio and the others ever saw it. No scene presents it. And yet, this thought is not pursued by the director. Horatio remains in the background, and the Ghost's reality is not questioned.

Another change is that the Ghost is not wearing armor (and all descriptions of such have been cut). This Hamlet Sr. is not a warrior and there are no Pollack Wars mentioned as a context. He seems old and dressed as a monk. Instead of an absent but glorified father, we have a man who might not have been able to properly service his too-young wife, and whose piety and morals are espoused by his son. It changes the whole dynamic of the Hamlet family. As written, Hamlet cannot really know how good his father was, making the Ghost's ambiguity Hamlet Sr.'s as well. Hamlet becomes a scholar and doesn't follow in his father's footsteps. There is a rebellion there that is continued in the mistrust he shows the Ghost, and that may have generated guilt that informs his grief. Claudius would have swooped in while his brother was away. Here, there is no real sense that Senior was absent (the Gravedigger's mention of the wars has no lasting resonance) from his son's life, only his wife's (sexually, whether because of age or morality). Hamlet is using his father as more of a moral compass, explaining his own prudish ideas, but also making the Ghost more sympathetic (as we'll see in the next scene), a victim to be pitied. Claudius and Gertrude are more brazen in their affair.

The scene ends with Hamlet breathlessly following the Ghost through the bowels of the castle, his sword always in front of him as the others lose sight of both.

Act I Scene 4 - BBC '80

Despite being studio-bound, the BBC/Jacobi version does a good job of making Denmark look freezing. By keeping the actors in a single position (instead of the walk-and-talk or pacing stagings previously seen), we get a better sense of them waiting for the Ghost to arrive. In a more dynamic staging, the Ghost seems to appear as soon as the players are in all in place, or at worse, done with their rants about the Danish reputation. Here, Horatio loses track of time because he doesn't know how long they've been there, and all three men are paranoid, turning around at every little noise, hoping or fearing that the Ghost has come. In that context, Hamlet's speech about his uncle's debauchery is just a way of filling up the time. And in that context, the lines do take on added meaning.

I am especially interested in Hamlet's thoughts on the nature of guilt. He says "As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty, Since nature cannot choose his origin--". If Hamlet indeed believes that a person cannot be truly guilty of his crimes because he was born to commit them, it helps explain his ambivalent relationship towards his revenge. The true fault lies with nature or fortune (with God?), not with Man. Compare with his apology to Laertes in which he blames his madness and not himself. Later in the scene, his "fate cries out", again giving fortune the largest responsibility for events. There is a contradiction at play here: If no one is truly guilty, then how can he blame the King's behavior for the bad reputation laid at Danish feet? How is responsibility handed out in this world? Above all, perhaps, Hamlet is a play about a man talking things through, thinking out loud, and debating himself. He forms opinions right in front of the viewer/reader. he may well contradict himself, but by play's end, we hope to find the more complete individual (and we do).

There is a telling moment in Jacobi's performance when they all stop for a noise, determine it is a false alarm, and he just continues on with his speech. On the surface, he appears to be keeping a brave face, but is this really his own nature-given defect? Intellectualizing, talking rather than acting, etc.? In this speech about corruption of character, he is showing us his own flaw.
Then, the Ghost arrives. An interesting gesture from Horatio here, with the hands clasped in prayer. A real change from the unbeliever of Scene 1, chuckling at these stories of ghosts. Of course, one of the few cuts from this version included Horatio's allusions to pagan Rome, so he more clearly painted as a Christian.
As for Hamlet, there is an interesting line reading in "I'll call thee Hamlet, King, father" at the end of which Jacobi adds a question mark. "I'll call thee Hamlet, King, father?" Who IS this Ghost? If he is "Hamlet", it plays on the idea of being his own madness and thus himself. If "King", then he will rule over Hamlet, regardless of whether is the Ghost of Hamlet Sr. returned or a goblin damned. If "Father", then as true Ghost. Jacobi does well to play on this ambiguity, also giving fodder for those who would call into question Hamlet's true genetic origins. (For the truly tragic ending has Hamlet kill his true father.)

Act I Scene 4 - Olivier '48

Visually, Hamlet is already teetering on the edge - of sanity - as we come into Scene 4. He's still rather calm and Horatio is at best matter-of-fact, as per their usual characterizations in this film. It continues the feeling set up in Scene 1 that the supernatural is a normal part of this world.

This time, we see the King's rouse, albeit from afar, down in the courtyard.
So we can trust Hamlet's take on events a lot more, and in any case, the party doesn't take on the feeling of a private orgy it does in Branagh's version. And Olivier doesn't play Hamlet's speech as a rant either, but more as a reflection. He isn't outraged, but perhaps more disappointed in his own countrymen's reputation. The pauses he takes makes it all seem like a new idea rather than an old point of contention. Branagh's Hamlet had rehearsed the speech a hundred times in his head (which certainly fits the idea of Hamlet as a Player), but Olivier's speaks/hears it for the first time (more in line with Bloom's "characters overhearing themselves" concept.

The Ghost's arrival is heralded by a sense of anxiety created by a pulsing heartbeat that makes the camera go in and out of focus on Hamlet.
Along with Hamlet's suicidal tendencies shown at the top of the scene through its staging, this camera trick helps create a point of view for the character. Is he in fact insane? He's certainly unstable, and Horatio will be right to fear that the Ghost will drawn him "into madness". One answer to the reality/unreality of the Ghost is that it is real (in this supernatural world), not a figment of Hamlet's madness, but responsible for it. He only needs a small push, and this apparition gives Hamlet one more ball to juggle in his already confused mind. However, while supernatural is accepted by the characters, we might still believe it to be the result of superstition. In that case, the Ghost's appearance is merely a by-product of their point of view, and the modern viewer could say it was due to a trick of the light and the fog. And when it speaks, it is Hamlet's madness that speaks (but then the end of Scene 5 might be problematic). Certainly, this image of the Ghost is indistinct enough to support that interpretation.
Hamlet pulls out his sword to "make a ghost that lets" him, but also uses it as a cross to protect himself from evil before taking off after the Ghost.
The last exchange between Horatio and Marcellus is cut from this version (just as a number of words are changed, "clep" to "call" is a particularly annoying example), again supporting Hamlet's point of view through this scene. He wouldn't have heard them. The effect on plot is minimal, though it does remove some well-known lines. This version of the film continues to marginalize these secondary characters in favor of Hamlet, which is a perfectly legitimate way of addressing the play's length.

Act I Scene 4 - Branagh '96

Branagh's version of the scene is without a doubt where I got my impression of disjointed time playing tricks on Horatio, because Nicholas Farrell puts a strong spin on the exchange. Hamlet looks at him impatiently, and he admits to not having heard the clock stroke twelve. Might they have missed the Ghost due to his absent-mindedness?

The King's rouse has started, we hear the cannons fire, and Hamlet is forced to explain the ritual. That's twice in a row Horatio doesn't seem to know what's going on. Should we infer anything from this? We discussed how he must be at least in part a stranger to Elsinore or the Court in the previous article, but it strikes me that there is also a dramatic device at play. In Scene 1, Horatio had difficulty accepting a non-rational universe, one in which a Ghost could exist. As we near the moment of the Ghost's return, we once again enter that non-rational domain and Horatio is lost. The voice of reason has no place here. Shakespeare may be using Horatio's confusion to destabilize the audience. After all, he is something of an audience identifier figure who gets things explained to him, etc.

Branagh chooses here to show us the Claudius' rouse, but is the camera's point of view trustworthy? After all, Hamlet is telling us about it, and he isn't there, placing doubt on these images of Claudius knocking back glass after glass before throwing the Queen on a bed in full view of his ministers.
That last bit is especially incendiary, and based on the subject matter, there's reason to believe it's part of Hamlet's imagination. Even in the play as written, without the benefit of film editing, we only get Hamlet's version of these events. He may be laying it on a bit thick because of his general dislike (is that too weak a word) for Claudius.

I now strikes me that while "the stamp of one defect" is literally about Claudius and ironically about Hamlet (again, see previous article), it also applies to Hamlet Sr. This is a man we are about to hear speak for the first time in the play, and who has been in turn deified and humanized by his son, who by all accounts was a goodly king (but also just "a man"). What defect did he carry? And what corruption stemmed from it? One of the questions of the play is the nature of Hamlet's relationship to his father, who seems to have been absent for most of his life, off to the wars. Is this the defect that helps form Hamlet's opinion about this, and indeed, the one that led to his ruination (absence or cold distance that allowed his wife to fall for Claudius)? We continue to look for clues.
Another element we can look at is Hamlet's moral outrage. He sets himself up as the defender of Danish character, while Claudius gives himself over to debauched tradition. Hamlet is presented as a politicized individual who is "princely" for seeing the bigger picture and recognizing that the King is the head of the state, corruption in one spreading through the other. Or in this case, replace corruption by reputation. It is this moral sensitivity that may explain why he doesn't take to murder very easily.

Branagh's film makes a change from the play in this scene by placing the "Angels and ministers" speech at the end, when Hamlet has left his friends behind (so really, at the start of Scene 5) rather than at the Ghost's appearance. This creates greater urgency, making Hamlet want to follow the Ghost almost immediately and causing Horatio and Marcellus to fear for his sanity, where the text would have him cast a protective spell at the first sign of the supernatural. No, instead, Branagh gives us a running prayer through the woods, and a hellish montage of bubbling smoke, fiery eruptions, cracking earth and funereal memories.
It is a very literal descent into hell. The Ghost does not so much crawl out of hell to meet Hamlet, but brings a part of hell with him. They meet at some halfway point, but then, isn't Denmark rotten enough that it has merged with hell itself? The furious pace of the prayer sends us headlong into the very precipice Horatio sought to avoid, and the images so bizarre compared to the relatively rational reality of the rest of the play/film, that we wonder if we can trust Hamlet's point of view. Is this a product of insanity (again, the fact that others see the Ghost complicates matters). I will at this point criticize Hamlet Sr.'s Santa suit, which pulls me right out of the experience when I see it.
In any case, placing the prayer at the end of the scene (of if you like, at the start of the next) makes Hamlet follow "What should we do?" with "Where wilt thou lead me?", Hamlet lost and his soul in play.

Act 1 Scene 4

Hamlet's decisive fearlessness in this scene contrasts with the ambivalence he shows in the rest of the play, as if by feigning madness, he may have lost himself along the way. If he loses himself in the part, then he does not become this Hamlet again until the last act, after "finding himself" on his sea voyage. Scene 4, in which Hamlet joins Horatio and the soldiers on the platform to verify the Ghost's existence for himself, is made up of two parts: First, Hamlet Wittenbergian railing against the custom of the King's rouse, and second, his seduction by the Ghost, making him leave his friends behind.

For directors, there are a few choices to be made here. How debauched is the rouse? The less extreme it is, the more Hamlet seems intolerant and/or simply hateful of anything Claudius does (which actually helps the case for a mad Hamlet). The presentation of the Ghost may also be problematic. While it is a seductive idea to have him be a figment of Hamlet's imagination, there can be no question that in the text, other people see it. And yet they do not hear its message in Scene 5, so ambiguity may persist, and directors may well find ways to manipulate the play to stage things differently.

The full text follows in italics, with some comments from me interspersed throughout.SCENE IV. The platform.
Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS
HAMLET: The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
HORATIO: It is a nipping and an eager air.
HAMLET: What hour now?
HORATIO: I think it lacks of twelve.
HAMLET: No, it is struck.
HORATIO: Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

Once again, images of time being out of joint. Horatio has lost track of the time.

A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within

What does this mean, my lord?

This is an odd question coming from Horatio who, up until this moment, seemed to be a fellow Dane. Why does he not know this custom? Is he from elsewhere? Hamlet seems to infer that even other countries are aware of this tradition that has given Denmark a bad reputation. What would be the consequences of a non-Danish Horatio? In some ways, Horatio is a stranger looking in and the "author" of the play. One might even see his ambiguous nationality as the reason for the play's Englishisms. On a more thematic note, it places Horatio outside Denmark's corruptive influence, and in this short exchange, he doesn't seem to feel the cold as strongly as Hamlet. Denmark's hold is not as strong on him as it is for others (his lesser fear of the Ghost being another example).

HAMLET: The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
HORATIO: Is it a custom?
HAMLET: Ay, marry, is't:
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,

The word "mole", later applied to the Ghost traveling in the underworld, is first used here. In both cases, Hamlet evokes the idea of a demon, which may indicate that from the first, he does not trust his father's Ghost entirely.

As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin--
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners, that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--
Their virtues else--be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo--
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault: the dram of eale
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal.

The essence of tragedy is spelled out here. The idea that a character's one defect can and will destroy him is as much as part of this play as it is any of Shakespeare's tragedies (Othello's jealousy, Romeo & Juliet's impatience, etc.). It's entirely too simple to say Hamlet's defect is his indecision, as it is far more ambiguous than that. Various actors and directors have give that indecision different motives over the years, and these motives are the true defect. It may be mistrust, intellectualism, hubris, uncertainty, or something else entirely. This is a large part of what makes Hamlet such a rich play.

Note also the leitmotif of a poisonous cup. Claudius' drunken revels poison his soul (and thus all of Denmark's); the poison pours into Hamlet Sr.'s ear; the poison cup in Act 5. Indeed, even innocent Ophelia is drowned.

HORATIO: Look, my lord, it comes!

Enter Ghost

HAMLET: Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?

These lines make up a wonderful horror poem. Note how Hamlet cannot yet determine if the Ghost is angel or demon, something perhaps never truly resolved in his mind.

Ghost beckons HAMLET

HORATIO: It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.
MARCELLUS: Look, with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with it.
HORATIO: No, by no means.
HAMLET: It will not speak; then I will follow it.
HORATIO: Do not, my lord.
HAMLET: Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life in a pin's fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again: I'll follow it.
HORATIO: What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,

Again the idea of drowning.

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? think of it:

Is this where Hamlet gets the idea for his feigned madness? Or is it that he is actually drawn into madness, just as Horatio foretold here?

The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.
HAMLET: It waves me still.

Even unconsciously, Hamlet remains a punster. He is "waved" toward the "sea".

Go on; I'll follow thee.
MARCELLUS: You shall not go, my lord.
HAMLET: Hold off your hands.
HORATIO: Be ruled; you shall not go.
HAMLET: My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.

Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET

HORATIO: He waxes desperate with imagination.
MARCELLUS: Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
HORATIO: Have after. To what issue will this come?
MARCELLUS: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO: Heaven will direct it.
MARCELLUS: Nay, let's follow him.

Exeunt

Horatio's call for Heaven to direct it is contradicted by the more intuitive Marcellus ("Nay"). Shakespeare lays on another layer of ambiguity, ever making us question whether the Ghost is true to its word or not. One answer, of course, is that the Ghost is telling the truth AND spurs Hamlet to ruinous revenge against the laws of God. If Hamlet is more puritanical than the countrymen around him, then it may be that murder, even to revenge a father, is antithetical to him. It may be the reason he delays his action for so long, often questioning the Ghost's morality. And the text does make Claudius guilty of regicide, but also sets a high price for revenge. What is madness, but an inability to reconcile two contrary impulses?