Does anyone know of a shakespeare hamlet script which starts with the king of denmarks funeral?
We have, basically, three scripts for Hamlet that were published during Shakespeare’s lifetime or shortly after. They’re generally referred to as the “first quarto,” “second quarto” and “first folio” editions (a “folio” is a big book, like a family bible or a big school textbook; a “quarto” is a small edition, the size of a trade paperback novel). All of them start with the guards seeing Hamlet Senior’s ghost. If Shakespeare ever wrote a funeral scene for the old king, we don’t have it today. The one thing I can think of is the 1990-ish movie of Hamlet starring Mel Gibson, which I seem to recall included some scenes of the funeral and so forth, either with no dialogue or a couple of short lines lifted from other parts of the play. So maybe that’s worth a look.
