How does Hamlet die?

Hamlet dies after being wounded with a poisoned sword during a duel with Laertes. Claudius and Laertes secretly arrange the match as a trap: Laertes’s sword is tipped with poison, and Claudius also prepares a cup of poisoned wine as a backup plan. During the fight, Laertes cuts Hamlet with the poisoned blade, but the two men accidentally exchange swords, and Hamlet wounds Laertes with the same weapon.

As the chaos unfolds, Queen Gertrude unknowingly drinks the poisoned wine meant for Hamlet and dies. Laertes, realizing that he himself has been fatally poisoned, confesses the plot and tells Hamlet that “the king’s to blame.” Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink the poisoned wine, killing him.

Hamlet then collapses from the poison already working through his body. Before dying, he asks Horatio to “tell [his] story” and names Fortinbras as the future king of Denmark. His final words are “The rest is silence,” after which Horatio mourns him as a “sweet prince.”

Hamlet’s death comes only after he finally acts on the revenge he has delayed throughout the play. Shakespeare ties Hamlet’s end to the tragedy’s larger pattern: nearly every major character dies as revenge, political corruption, and moral uncertainty consume the Danish court.