Read the excerpt from Act I of Hamlet.

Bernardo: 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

What is the meaning of the underlined phrase?

This is twelve.

It's twelve o'clock.

Twelve things have fallen.

A man was hit twelve times.

The right answer is: it's twelve o'clock. The context in the sentence in Shakespeare's Hamlet it makes us understand that Bernardo asks Francisco to go to sleep again, because it is too late to be awake, and "struck" refers to the clock's chimes in the night.

The meaning of this sentence is "It's twelve o'clock" (B). This is written in old English which says the time of the day. By then, the clock uses a pendulum which sound each hour and count out the number the corresponding hour. Because of that the word 'strike' was used with time during that age.