TEXT:
LAERTES
This is too heavy, let me see another.
HAMLET
This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
OSRIC
Ay, my good lord.
CLAUDIUS
Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire:
The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;
And in the cup an union shall he throw,
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth.
Now the king drinks to Hamlet. Come, begin;
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.
NOTES:
Fencing
Fencing is an umbrella term for three distinct disciplines (foil, épée and sabre) of sword fighting. It developed as a sport in the 18th century in London, spearheaded by a teacher called Domenico Angelo. He wrote a very influential book called The School of Fencing, and had an actual school at Carlisle House in London. The sport was popular enough to be included from the very beginning of the modern Olympic Games in 1896, and has remained on the docket at every Olympiad since then.
Thomas Kyd
Kyd was perhaps the most successful English playwright before Shakespeare and Marlowe came to prominence, and he was a key contributor to the development of Elizabethan theatre. Elsewhere we have made frequent reference to Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, but this episode refers to another of his plays. Soliman and Perseda was a little later than the monster hit about Hieronimo, and is believed to have been written in about 1593. You can read a text of the play laid out with conveniently modern spelling here.