TEXT:
LAERTES
I will do't:
And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point
With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.
CLAUDIUS
Let's further think of this;
Weigh what convenience both of time and means
May fit us to our shape: if this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance,
'Twere better not assayed: therefore this project
Should have a back or second, that might hold,
If this should blast in proof. Soft! let me see:
We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings: I ha't.
When in your motion you are hot and dry -
As make your bouts more violent to that end -
And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him
A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,
Our purpose may hold there.
NOTES:
Extreme Unction
Extreme Unction is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic church. In the aftermath of the English Reformation, a whole generation of former Catholics, forced to toe the new Protestant, Anglican line or face the consequences of heresy, lost the comfort of this particular sacrament. Here Laertes is inferring that the fencing match will be the end of Hamlet’s life - but instead of the comfor of the sacraments, he will be poisoned to death.
Cataplasm
A cataplasm is a poultice, or a dressing for a wound. The word sounds like something more sinister, perhaps because words that end in -plasm have associations from horror films. The word comes from Greek - to plaster over something. A cataplasm is something put over a wound to help it heal.
Canterbury Tales
This episode mentions Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. one of the most famous texts in English before Shakespeare.