The scene is set outside the walls of the castle of Elsinore in which  Hamlet follows the ghost that admits he is the spirit of King Hamlet. He says he has a short amount of time before he has to return to purgatory.He also says he cannot explain how purgatory is as it is too ‘evil’, he says it would “would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood”. He tells the young prince, Hamlet, that he must avenge his murder and that tells him that during his sleep Claudius crept up on him and poured a lethal poison into his ear which killed him.