RALPH: Any update on Claudius and Laertes? 

SARAH: Yes, quite dramatic news in fact. Claudius has a new approach to solving his Hamlet problem. He's been telling Laertes a somewhat skewed version of how Polonius died, making Hamlet out to be quite the villain. Laertes, taken in by his story, helps Claudius devise a plan to kill Hamlet in a fencing match between the two young men, in which Laertes will accidentally use a sword with a sharpened tip. Laertes then proposes, rather shockingly in my view, to poison the tip of the sword to ensure Hamlet's death. What do they teach them over there in France? Claudius, not to be outdone on the wickedness front, then proposes, as a backup plan, a glass of poisoned wine, which Claudius will offer to Hamlet in the middle of the fencing match, once he gets all hot and sweaty and takes off his shirt. Oh dear, what's the queen doing here? We are going to want to hear this. 

CLAUDIUS: If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck, our purpose may hold there. How now, sweet queen. 

GERTRUDE: One woe doth tread upon another's heel, so fast they follow. Your sister's drowned, Laertes. 

LAERTES: Drowned, where? 

GERTRUDE: There is a willow grows aslant the brook, that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. There with fantastic garlands did she come of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies and long purples. That liberal shepherds give a grocer name, but our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. There, on the pendant boughs, her coronet weeds, clambering to hang, and envious sliver broke. When down her weedy trophies and herself fell into the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide. And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up. Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes. As one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and endued unto that element. But long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death. 

LAERTES: Alas, then, she is drowned? 

GERTRUDE: Drowned, drowned. 

LAERTES: Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia. And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet it is our trick. Nature her custom holds, let's shame say what it will. When these are gone, the woman will be out. Adieu, my lord. I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, but that this folly douts it. 

CLAUDIUS: Let's follow, Gertrude. How much I had to do to calm his rage. Now fear I this will give it start again. 

SARAH: Oh my, sobering news indeed, Ralph. The young Ophelia, in love with Prince Hamlet, but at the mercy of so much political intrigue, has drowned. Did she simply slip while picking flowers, a tragic accident, or did she allow herself to be pulled under by the weight of her wet clothes? Ralph? 

RALPH: Sad news, indeed. And so, act IV ends with a plotting king, a vengeful Laertes, a despairing queen, and the death of Ophelia. Where can all this be headed? We'll find out, right after this.