As I mentioned last week, I find it very interesting that Fortinbras is the person left standing at the end of the play. Is the message supposed to be that, to be a successful ruler, you had to be annexing new and regaining formerly lost territory all the time, as King Hamlet and Fortinbras have done?

Certainly the English rulers around Shakespeare's time were famous for exploring and colonizing, and they were never afraid to go to war over a plot of land.