Hamlet: Act 4, Scene 7 – Analysis
Scene Profile – At a Glance
- Location: A room in Elsinore Castle.
- What Happens: Claudius convinces Laertes that Hamlet is to blame for Polonius's death. When news comes that Hamlet has returned, the two plot to kill him in a "friendly" fencing match using a sharpened, poisoned sword and a poisoned drink. Gertrude then enters with the news that Ophelia has drowned.
- Key Characters: Claudius, Laertes, Gertrude.
- Dramatic Function: The scene sets the deadly trap that will end the play, and reports Ophelia's death – one of its most beautiful and tragic moments.
- Famous Quote:
"There is a willow grows aslant a brook..."
(Gertrude, Act 4, Scene 7) - Why It Matters: It builds the poisoned-duel plot that kills almost everyone in Act 5, and gives Ophelia's death its haunting, lyrical account.
Scene Summary
Claudius works on Laertes, convincing him that Hamlet is responsible for the death of his father, Polonius, and explaining why he has not punished Hamlet himself: the queen loves her son, and so do the people. Just then letters arrive announcing that Hamlet has unexpectedly returned to Denmark.
Seeing his chance, Claudius proposes a plan. He will arrange a fencing match between Laertes and Hamlet, presented as friendly sport. But Laertes's blade will be sharp, not blunted, and tipped with deadly poison, so that the slightest scratch will kill. Laertes eagerly agrees, adding that he has bought a poison so strong that a single touch is fatal. As a backup, Claudius will also prepare a poisoned cup of wine for Hamlet to drink if he survives the blade.
Their scheming is interrupted by Gertrude, who brings terrible news: Ophelia has drowned. In one of the play's most famous speeches, she describes how Ophelia, decked in wild flowers, fell from a willow branch into a brook and, singing, was slowly dragged down by her sodden clothes to a "muddy death". Laertes, overcome, weeps for his sister, and his grief hardens his resolve for revenge.
Cut His Throat i' the Church
Claudius proves a master manipulator, testing how far Laertes's grief will carry him. To prove he is truly his father's son, the king asks, what would Laertes actually do? The answer is chilling.
Original
To cut his throat i' the church.
(Laertes, Act 4, Scene 7)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
I'll kill him in the church.
Laertes would murder Hamlet even in a church – the one place that should offer sanctuary. The line is a direct contrast with Hamlet, who in the prayer scene refused to kill Claudius precisely because he was at his prayers. Where Hamlet's scruples about heaven and hell paralyse him, Laertes has no such hesitation. Claudius approves, saying "no place... should murder sanctuarize" – revenge should respect no boundaries. The exchange shows how cleanly Laertes fits the role of the conventional, ruthless avenger that Hamlet never could.
The Poisoned Sword and Cup
Together, the king and the grieving son design a murder dressed as a game. Their plan is layered with treachery: a sharpened sword, deadly poison, and a poisoned drink as insurance.
Original
And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank...
(Laertes, Act 4, Scene 7)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
And, for revenge, I'll consecrate my sword.
I bought a potion from a scallywag...
Laertes will "anoint" his sword with an "unction" – an ointment – bought from a "mountebank", a quack seller of poisons. The word "anoint", normally used for sacred blessing, is twisted here into something foul, fitting a plot that turns friendly sport into murder. Claudius adds the poisoned cup, so that even if the blade misses, the drink will not. The double, even triple, treachery shows how rotten both men have become. It also seals their fates: every weapon they prepare will, in the chaos of the final scene, turn back on its makers.
There Is a Willow
The plotting is cut short by Gertrude's entrance and the news of Ophelia's death. Her speech describing the drowning is one of the most beautiful passages in all of Shakespeare, turning a horror into something dreamlike and tender.
Original
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream...
(Gertrude, Act 4, Scene 7)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
There is a leaning willow by a stream
Whose greying leaves reflect within the water...
The willow has long been a symbol of forsaken love, which makes it the perfect tree for Ophelia, abandoned by Hamlet. Gertrude's account is strangely calm and lovely – the "glassy stream", the garlands of wild flowers – as though the scene were a painting rather than a tragedy. This dreamy beauty has fixed Ophelia in the imagination ever since, most famously in John Everett Millais's painting of her floating among the flowers. The loveliness of the description also raises a hard question the play never answers: if Gertrude watched all this, why did no one save her?
To Muddy Death
The speech follows Ophelia from the breaking branch into the water, singing, until the river slowly claims her. The ending is as plain and brutal as the rest was lovely.
Original
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
(Gertrude, Act 4, Scene 7)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
And pulled the poor girl, singing on her back,
To die a muddy death.
For a while Ophelia floats, "mermaid-like", singing snatches of old songs, "as one incapable of her own distress" – not understanding the danger she is in. Then her waterlogged clothes drag her down "to muddy death". The contrast between her "melodious lay" (her singing) and the "muddy" reality of drowning is devastating. The two harsh words "muddy death" end the beautiful speech with a thud of ugly truth. Ophelia, who sang her way through her madness, sings her way into the water, and the river that looked like a mirror becomes her grave.
Language and Technique
- Manipulative rhetoric: Claudius leads Laertes step by step, flattering, questioning and goading him into the murder plot.
- Perverted religious language: "Anoint" and "unction" twist words of blessing into the vocabulary of poison and murder.
- Symbolism: The willow (forsaken love) and the wild flowers tie Ophelia's death to her abandonment and her madness.
- Beauty against horror: Gertrude's lyrical description makes the drowning dreamlike, then crashes into the blunt phrase "muddy death".
- Reported death: Ophelia dies offstage, told as a story, which makes her end feel distant, poetic and strangely peaceful.
Key Quotes from Act 4, Scene 7
Quote 1To show yourself your father's son in deed
More than in words?
(Claudius, Act 4, Scene 7)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
To demonstrate you are your father's son,
With more than words?
Revenge should have no bounds.
(Claudius, Act 4, Scene 7)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Revenge should have no limits.
A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venomed stuck...
(Claudius, Act 4, Scene 7)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
A cup for the occasion, and on sipping,
If somehow he's escaped your poisoned sword...
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up...
(Gertrude, Act 4, Scene 7)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes expanded,
And, like a mermaid, held her up awhile...
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia...
(Laertes, Act 4, Scene 7)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Ophelia, you've had far too much water...
Key Takeaways
- Claudius manipulates Laertes: He convinces Laertes that Hamlet must die and channels his grief into a plot.
- The poisoned duel is planned: A sharpened, poisoned sword and a poisoned cup are prepared to kill Hamlet.
- Both men are corrupted: Laertes would kill "in the church"; Claudius says revenge should have "no bounds".
- Ophelia drowns: Gertrude describes her death in the play's most beautiful and tragic speech.
- The trap is set: Every poison prepared here will rebound in the final scene.
Study Questions and Analysis
How does Claudius turn Laertes against Hamlet?
Claudius handles Laertes with great skill. First he establishes his own innocence, persuading Laertes that Hamlet alone is to blame for Polonius's death and explaining that he has spared Hamlet only because the queen and the people love him. Then he flatters Laertes's love for his father and challenges him to prove it through action rather than mere mourning. Step by step, he transforms Laertes's raw grief into a focused desire to kill Hamlet.
The manipulation shows Claudius at his most dangerous. He never openly orders a murder; he leads Laertes to propose and embrace it as his own idea, so that the king's hands look clean. It is the same indirect cunning we saw in the very first scenes, now turned to deadly purpose. Laertes, blinded by grief and hungry for revenge, is the perfect target: honest, passionate and easy to steer. By the end of the scene, Claudius has a willing accomplice who believes the plot is about his own honour, when it is really about the king's survival.
What is the plan to kill Hamlet?
The plan is a piece of layered treachery disguised as friendly sport. Claudius will arrange a fencing match between Laertes and Hamlet. In a normal practice bout the swords are blunted ("bated") for safety, but Laertes's blade will be sharp and, on his own suggestion, smeared with a poison so deadly that a single scratch will kill. To make doubly sure, Claudius will also prepare a cup of poisoned wine, ready to offer Hamlet a drink during the match, in case the blade somehow fails.
The thoroughness of the plot is striking and, in the end, self-defeating. So much poison is set loose – on the sword and in the cup – that in the chaos of the final scene it spreads to almost everyone present. Gertrude drinks the cup meant for Hamlet; Hamlet and Laertes are both cut by the poisoned blade; and Claudius is forced to swallow his own poison. The scene plants the murder weapons, and Act 5 turns every one of them back on its makers, so that the plot designed to kill one man kills four.
What does the plot reveal about Claudius and Laertes?
It reveals how far both men have fallen into corruption. Claudius, who in the prayer scene showed a tortured conscience, here coolly arranges a second murder without a flicker of remorse, proving that his guilt never stops him acting. He is a ruthless survivor who will poison, scheme and use others to protect his crown.
Laertes is more tragic. He begins as an honourable young man, but grief and Claudius's manipulation drag him into a dishonourable plot, agreeing to a poisoned sword and treachery that shame the very code of honour he claims to defend. His readiness to "cut his throat i' the church" shows revenge stripped of all restraint. The scene is a study in how revenge corrupts: it turns a grieving brother into a poisoner and binds him to a murderer. Crucially, it also sharpens the contrast with Hamlet, whose endless scruples, so often a fault, here look almost like wisdom beside Laertes's reckless, dishonourable haste.
How does Gertrude describe Ophelia's death?
Gertrude's account is one of the most famous speeches in Shakespeare. She describes how Ophelia, garlanded with wild flowers, climbed onto a willow branch overhanging a brook. The branch broke, and Ophelia fell into the "weeping" water. For a time her spreading clothes held her up, "mermaid-like", and she floated and sang old songs, seemingly unaware of her danger. Then her sodden garments grew heavy and dragged her down "to muddy death".
The speech is remarkable for its beauty. Gertrude paints the drowning as something dreamlike and almost peaceful – the glassy stream, the flowers, the singing – rather than a violent struggle. This lovely, distanced telling has shaped how Ophelia is remembered, inspiring countless paintings of her floating among the flowers. But the beauty also raises an uncomfortable question: Gertrude describes the death in such detail that she seems to have watched it happen, so why did no one pull Ophelia out? The speech turns a young woman's death into a work of art, which is both moving and, on reflection, troubling.
Was Ophelia's death an accident or suicide?
The play deliberately leaves this open, and it becomes a real point of debate. Gertrude's speech suggests an accident: a branch breaks, Ophelia falls, and she is too lost in her madness to save herself. She is described as "incapable of her own distress" – not understanding the danger – which makes the drowning sound passive rather than chosen. On this reading, Ophelia simply lets the water take her because, in her madness, she cannot grasp what is happening.
Yet the question of suicide hangs over the death. In the very next act, the gravediggers argue about whether Ophelia drowned herself, and a priest cuts short her funeral rites because her death is "doubtful". In Shakespeare's time, suicide was a mortal sin that barred a person from full Christian burial, so the ambiguity has serious weight. Did Ophelia, broken by grief, choose to die, or did she drift to her death without deciding? The play refuses to say. The uncertainty deepens her tragedy: even her death is something done to her or around her, never clearly an act of her own will, just as her whole life has been shaped by forces beyond her control.
Why is the willow speech so beautiful, and what effect does it have?
Shakespeare gives Ophelia's death a speech of extraordinary lyrical beauty – the leaning willow, the glassy stream, the garlands of flowers, the floating and singing – so that it reads almost like a poem or a painting. The loveliness is deliberate. It transforms a sordid, frightening event, a young woman drowning in a muddy brook, into something dreamlike and strangely gentle, easing the horror for the audience.
The effect is double-edged. On one hand, it gives Ophelia in death the tenderness and attention she was denied in life; finally, the whole stage stops to mourn her. On the other, the beauty distances us from the reality and even prettifies it, which some critics find troubling. Elaine Showalter, in her 1985 essay Representing Ophelia, traced how Ophelia became an icon of beautiful, passive female suffering, endlessly painted and idealised, so that her real powerlessness is dressed up as something lovely. The willow speech is the source of that image. It is genuinely moving, but it also turns a victim into a decoration, which is, in its own way, the final example of how the play's world looks at Ophelia.
How does Ophelia's death connect to the play's wider themes?
Ophelia's death gathers up several of the play's threads. It is the tragic endpoint of the theme of gender and power: a woman with no control over her own life is finally swept away by forces – grief, madness, the schemes of men – that she could never resist. The flowers that garland her recall the coded messages of her mad scene, and the water connects to the play's constant images of overflow, tears and drowning sorrow.
The death also feeds the play's obsession with mortality. Coming amid the plotting of yet another murder, it shows death arriving in two utterly different forms: the calculated, poisonous killing planned by Claudius and Laertes, and the soft, accidental, almost natural drowning of Ophelia. One is human evil; the other is closer to fate or chance. By placing them side by side, Shakespeare deepens the sense that death saturates the whole world of the play. And by killing Ophelia just as the men finalise their bloody plot, he reminds us that the innocent are destroyed alongside the guilty – a truth that the carnage of the final act will confirm.
How does this scene set up the final act?
The scene is the launch-pad for the tragedy's conclusion. It assembles every element of the ending: Hamlet's return to Denmark, Laertes's burning desire for revenge, Claudius's renewed determination to kill the prince, and the precise mechanism – the poisoned sword and cup – by which the deaths will come. Nothing in Act 5 happens that is not prepared here.
It also kills Ophelia, which provides the immediate occasion for Act 5 to open in a graveyard, with her funeral and the famous confrontation between Hamlet and Laertes over her grave. Her death gives Laertes the final push into the duel and supplies the emotional charge for the violence to come. By the end of this scene, all the pieces are in place: the avengers, the weapons, the motive and the victim. The audience knows a trap has been set, and watches the final act unfold with the dread of knowing how much poison is already loose in Elsinore.
