Let four captains / Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, / For he was likely, had he been put on, / To have prov’d most royally; and for his passage, / The soldiers’ music and the rites of war / Speak loudly for him.
Act V, Scene 2 · Fortinbras
Context
Fortinbras orders that Hamlet's body be carried onto a stage platform with full military honors, saying that if Hamlet had lived to become king, he would have been excellent at it.
Analysis
The conditional 'had he been put on' uses theatrical language ('put on' = staged, performed) that makes Hamlet's potential kingship sound like a role he never got to play. This meta-theatrical phrasing acknowledges that we've been watching a performance all along. Meanwhile, 'The soldiers' music and the rites of war / Speak loudly for him' personifies military ceremony as a voice that can testify on Hamlet's behalf now that he cannot speak—turning ritual into a substitute for the story Hamlet wanted Horatio to tell.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Fortinbras misreads Hamlet—the military funeral imposes a soldier's identity onto a man who agonized over action and violence, showing how public memory simplifies and distorts the dead to fit the needs of the living.