This chapter's epigraph comes from a famous line from Shakespeare's play Hamlet, in which Hamlet says, "'Tis just as the king's majesty has / ow / . . you barbaric scum' . take it back." This is a reference to the fact that the king is illiterate and that he has no idea what is going on in the world around him. Hamlet's soliloquy is interrupted by the arrival of the ambassador from the eastern part of the country, who has come to negotiate peace between the two countries.