Horatio chooses to emphasize some odd parts of this story for this bit. Like, if someone asked me what happened in Hamlet, I would list none of these things. It makes it sound as if there’s been nothing but death this whole time – which is not true. There’s just been a lot of it in the last act and it has ended with a stage full of dead people.
Why does Horatio frame it this way? Does he think it will make these particular guys listen more? Is he emphasizing the unnatural acts because he thinks these guys need a reason to stick around?
They know there’s been some death. The evidence is in front of them. Most people would want to hear how those deaths came to be – not a list of all the previous deaths.
It is oddly excessive. Especially for a guy with a stoic reputation.
It feels like someone turning up at the sinking of the Titanic and being told, “O have we had a lot of drownings! So many drownings. There were people who went down with the ship. People who fell overboard. People whose lifeboats were leaky. Probably there were even people who drowned in the sea before they even got on the boat. So many drownings! I have got so many to tell you about!”
The Hamlet Project 