TEXT:
HAMLET
I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.
GERTRUDE
Come, let me wipe thy face.
LAERTES
My lord, I'll hit him now.
CLAUDIUS
I do not think't.
LAERTES
[Aside] And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.
HAMLET
Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;
I pray you, pass with your best violence;
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
LAERTES
Say you so? come on.
They play
OSRIC
Nothing, neither way.
LAERTES
Have at you now!
Laertes wounds Hamlet. As they fight, they drop their swords. In the scuffle, they change rapiers. Hamlet wounds Laertes.
CLAUDIUS
Part them; they are incensed.
HAMLET
Nay, come, again.
Gertrude falls
OSRIC
Look to the queen there, ho!
HORATIO
They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?
OSRIC
How is't, Laertes?
LAERTES
Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;
I am justly killed with mine own treachery.
HAMLET
How does the queen?
CLAUDIUS
She swounds to see them bleed.
GERTRUDE
No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet -
The drink, the drink! I am poisoned.
Dies
NOTES
Conscience
For Shakespeare, conscience was synonymous with consciousness. It covers a variety of concepts like awareness, morality, even conscientiousness. Hamlet earlier planned to “catch the conscience of the king” with the Mousetrap. He also worried that “conscience does make cowards of us all”. It’s no accident that Laertes has a similar moment of pause.
Woodcocks
The woodcock, or snipe (with the fabulous Latin family name Scolopax) is a family of birds notorious for being easy to catch - primarily because they aren't particularly sharp. Earlier in the play, Polonius advised Ophelia not to be caught up in Hamlet's traps (or springes): here Laertes laments the fact that he is caught in the one he set for Hamlet.