And why is it that Fortinbras is the nephews? Is he such a force that his single nephew-hood becomes plural? Is plurality a kind of respect? Or is it a punctuation error? – As in the nephew’s to old Norway. As in the nephew is to old Norway. Or a printing error and there should be no s there at all?
Or – is it that Fortinbras is really two brothers and they are collectively, the Fortinbras Bros.
it would be funny if there were two of them. And they’d kind of have to be twins. And it would be cool because when they came in at the end of the play, it’d be like, only two guys can take the place of Hamlet.
And, of course, only some editions have “nephews” others have “nephew.” What I need are copies of the folio and both quartos to get to the bottom of this!