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All Site ContentHamletAct 4Scene 7
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The Sport of Fencing
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Act 4,
Scene 7
Lines 13-115

An explanation of the sport of fencing in Act 4, Scene 7 of myshakespeare's Hamlet.

Claudius

(My virtue or my plague, be it either which)
She's so conjuncconjunctive to my life and soul
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her. The other motive 
Why to a public count I might not go
Is the great love the general gender bear him,
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone, 
Convert his guilts to graces so that my arrows,
Too slightly timbered for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aimed them.    

Laertes

And so have I a noble father lost, 
A sister driven into desperate terms,
Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age
For her perfections. But my revenge will come.

Claudius

Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think     
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
That we can let our beard be shook with danger
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.
I loved your father, and we love ourself,
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine ...
[Enter a Messenger]
How now? What news?

Messenger

                                          Letters, my lord, from Hamlet. 
This to your majesty, this to the queen.
[He hands Claudius the letters.]

Claudius   

From Hamlet? Who brought them?

Messenger

Sailors, my lord, they say. I saw them not.
They were given me by Claudio. He received them.

Claudius   

Laertes, you shall hear them.
[To the Messenger]  Leave us. 
[Exit Messenger. Claudius reads.]
‘High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your
kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly
eyes, when I shall (first asking your pardon thereunto) 
recount th' occasions of my sudden and more strange 
return.
Hamlet.’
What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
Or is it some abuse? Or no such thing?

Laertes  

Know you the hand?     

Claudius

                                    'Tis Hamlet's character. 
"Naked" — And in a postscript here he says "alone."
Can you advise me?

Laertes

I'm lost inlost in it, my lord. But let him come.
It warms the very sickness in my heart,
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
"Thus didest thou."

Claudius

                                 If it be so, Laertes  
(As how should it be so, how otherwise?) 
Will you be ruled by me?

Laertes

If so you'll not o'errule me to a peace.

Claudius

To thine own peace. If he be now returned, 
As checking at his voyage, and that he means
No more to undertake it, I will work him
To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall.
And for his death, no wind of blame shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice
And call it accident. Some two months hence,
Here was a gentleman of Normandy.
I've seen myself, and served against, the French, 
And they ran well on horseback. But this gallant
Had witchcraft in't. He grew into his seat,
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
As had he been insorpsed and demi-natured
With the brave beast. So far he topped my thought
That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.

Laertes

                                              A Norman was't?

Claudius   

A Norman.

Laertes

Upon my life, Lamound.

Claudius

                                           The very same.

Laertes

I know him well. He is the brooch indeed
And gem of all the nation.

Claudius   

He made confession of you, 
And gave you such a masterly report
For art and exercise in your defense,
And for your rapier most especially,
That he cried out 'twould be a sight indeed
If one could match you, sir. This report of his 
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy,
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o'er to play with him.
Now, out of this –

Laertes

                            What out of this, my lord? 

Claudius

Laertes, was your father dear to you, 
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?

Laertes

                                         Why ask you this?

Claudius

Not that I think you did not love your father, 
But that I know love is begun by time, 
And that I see, (in passages of proof),
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.    
Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake
To show yourself your father's son in deed,
More than in words?

Laertes

                                     To cut his throat i'th' church.

Claudius

No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; 
Revenge should have no bounds. But good Laertes,
Will you do this: keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet, returned, shall know you are come home.
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together,
And wager o'er your heads. He, being remiss,
Most generous, and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils, so that with ease
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
A sword unbated and, in a pass of practice,

In the sport of fencing, two opponents face off, then charge at each other in a flurry of sword fighting until one player hits his opponent with the tip of his sword. That player is awarded a point for having won the “pass”. The first to score a specified number of points wins the match. Today, swords for competition are manufactured with blunt tips, but in Shakespeare’s time they used regular swords whose tips had been blunted or covered with a soft metal button.