TEXT:
HAMLET
O villany! Ho! let the door be locked:
Treachery! Seek it out.
LAERTES
It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;
No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not half an hour of life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenomed: the foul practise
Hath turned itself on me lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again: thy mother's poisoned:
I can no more: the king, the king's to blame.
HAMLET
The point! …envenomed too!
Then, venom, to thy work.
Hamlet stabs Claudius
ALL
Treason! treason!
CLAUDIUS
O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.
HAMLET
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.
Claudius dies
LAERTES
He is justly served;
It is a poison tempered by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.
Dies
NOTES
Villain
Hamlet calls Claudius a villain a great many times in the play. Interestingly, the word originally just meant a rustic, someone who lives or comes from the country. By Shakespeare’s time it had the meaning we understand by it today - a wicked person, a character whose motivations are evil. Some of the old associations may have hovered, making the denunciation all the more cutting.