Characters in Hamlet Characters in Hamlet What follows is an overview of the main characters in William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", followed by a list and summary of the minor characters from the play. Three different early versions of the play survive: known as the First Quarto ("Q1"), Second Quarto ("Q2"), and First Folio ("F1"), each has lines—and even scenes—missing in the others, and some character names vary. Marcellus, Bernardo (or Barnardo) and Francisco are sentries at Elsinore. Francisco gives up his watch to Bernardo in the opening of the play, and it is Bernardo and Marcellus, who first alert Horatio to the appearance of
Gilbert Shakespeare the parish of St Bride's. In 1597 he and a shoemaker stood surety for £19 bail for William Sampson, a Stratford clockmaker, in the Court of Queen's Bench. Gilbert Shakespeare seems to have moved back to Stratford by 1602. On 1 May of that year he acted as his brother William's agent in taking delivery of the deed to 107 acres of farm land in Old Stratford, which William Shakespeare had bought from John and William Combe for £320. Along with several unsavoury Warwickshire characters, Gilbert was named in a bill of complaint on 21 November 1609 instigated by Joan