Hamlet replies:
"Give Laertes the cup,
I'll play this bout first; set it by a while."
Hamlet makes another pass and touches Laertes, and the Queen grasps the poison cup in her excitement and drinks to her son.
The King impulsively says:
"Gertrude, do not drink!" (Aside) "It is the
poisoned cup!"
The Queen, as God and Fate would have it, says stubbornly:
"I will, my lord, I pray you pardon me!"
In the third round Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned-pointed rapier, and in the struggle Hamlet grasps Laertes' rapier and in turn wounds his antagonist.
At this moment the Queen falls off her throne, and dying, says to Hamlet:
"O, my dear Hamlet; the drink, the drink; I
am poisoned!"