midnight
There were sights to see : the Roman amphitheatre , and the churches with their sculptured sarcophagi and saintly relics -- interesting joints and saddles of martyrs , and enough fragments of the true cross to build a ship . The life in the _ piazze _ and on the streets , the crowds in the shops , the pageants , the lights , the stir , the color , all mightily took the eye of the young Dane . He was in a mood to be amused . Everything diverted him -- the faint pulsing of a guitar-string in an adjacent garden at midnight , or the sharp clash of gleaming sword blades under his window , when the Montecchi and the Cappelletti chanced to encounter each other in the narrow footway . Meanwhile , Hamlet brushed up his Italian . He was well versed in the literature of the language , particularly in its dramatic literature , and had long meditated penning a gloss to `` The Murther of Gonzago , '' a play which Hamlet held in deservedly high estimation . He made acquaintances , too .