Chapter Synopsis and Commentary of Hamlet - Study Guide by William Shakespeare

In Hamlet’s mind, reproduction has been reduced by his mother’s actions to a gross act. There is no longer a future and as such Hamlet, rejecting his obsessive musing ("some craven scruple / Of thinking too precisely on th’event" (IV.iv.40-1)), resigns himself to oblivion in death itself.

The fencing match begins as arranged. Hamlet wins the first two; the Queen drinks to him from the poisoned cup. This is the first time that she acts against the desires of Claudius. She dies in honouring Hamlet and warning him of the poisoned cup, suggesting the transference of love and loyalties from husband to son. Laertes, already fatally wounded as Hamlet has accidentally acquired the poisoned sword, confesses the plot and tells Hamlet that they will both die:

"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."

(V.ii. 296-300)

The revenge has come full circle and killed the instigators; Hamlet dies both as a revenger and as an object of revenge; he has accepted that a soldier’s role is to be killed and to kill.

Finally, private revenge is transformed into public justice and cleansing. Hamlet, as he dies, dissuades Horatio from taking his own life, and states that the next king of Denmark should be Fortinbras: "He has my dying voice" (V.ii.338). Hamlet dies with Horatio by his side and Fortinbras, representing the restoration of order, but an order based of course on violence, enters with his army to claim the throne.