The Hamlet Project

Is this a joke?
Did Horatio just make a joke?
Did Hamlet not get it?
Or is it a sort of self-effacing comment
Meant to lower his status in the eyes of those around him?
We’ve all just met Horatio and we already know he’s the least truant-y man around.
Is it perhaps a very bad lie?
Is it an attempt at evasion?
Was Horatio sent for?
Hamlet never asks him and Horatio only volunteers
That he came to see the funeral.
A truant disposition – well, no one with an actual truant disposition would say so.
Those that wriggle out of their obligations and slip the hook
Of their responsibilities would never own up to their evasiveness.
A slippery fish, once caught, will slip free again
Very easily
Sliding from a hand to the floor, to the water
Again and never look you in the eye.