LAERTES        I bought an unction of a mountebank

So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,

Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,

Collected from all simples that have virtue

Under the moon, can save the thing from death

That is but scratched withal. I’ll touch my point

With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly

It may be death.         (4.7.139-146)

I bought an unction of a mountebank—a poison; unction is an odd word here; it suggests consistency, partly, something to be smeared rather than dipped, anointed, as Laertes has said, although he does go on to say dip—but unction is associated with grace, and with the sacrament of extreme unction before death, so Laertes is either being unwittingly inappropriate or savagely blasphemous, oh yes, it’ll send him on his way. And procured from a mountebank, not just an apothecary with a sideline (like Romeo) but someone shady, a charlatan; a dealer. What kind of company has Laertes been keeping? And did he procure this on spec, in some Parisian back-alley, or did he intend it for Claudius, did he buy it for his return to Elsinore? No matter in the moment, but Laertes’s characterisation needs to accommodate this. What matters is that the unction is deadly, so mortal that, but dip a knife in it—the merest touch—where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, collected from all simples that have virtue under the moon, can save the thing from death that is but scratched withal. All it will take is the slightest scratch, and there’s no antidote in the world that will save you, no matter how carefully prepared, out of all the plants and herbs in the world (and the little glimpse of gathering plants is a proleptic one). It’s deadly, failsafe. I’ll touch my point with this contagion, an oddly delicate image, infection imagined as confined to the tiniest thing, that if I gall him slightly, it may be death. As I say, the tiniest scratch, and he’s dead.