Part 2 Section 1 (page 79 to 92) Summary

King Horvendile is now sixty, and Queen Geruthe forty-seven. They are discussing Prince Hamblet, who is twenty-nine and still a student at Wittenberg. Horvendile feels his age and wants Hamblet home to study kingship. He wants his son close for another reason. Fengon has returned to live in his manor in Jutland, and Horvendile worries that he covets his throne. Geruthe has some knowledge of Hamblet from Corambis, whose son, Laertes, is Hamblet's friend. She describes that Hamblet is learning the scientific method, and man as the measure of all things. To Horvendile, they smack of mockery and blasphemy, rather than the piety and order in which he believes. He worries that Hamblet spends his nights as a wanton. Gertrude thinks not. She sees him as passive and fastidious about women and sex. She thinks that a...