sad madness about the Court, with straws, and weeds,
and flowers in her hair, singing strange scraps of songs, and talking
poor, foolish, pretty talk with no heart of meaning to it. And one
day, coming to a stream where willows grew, she tried to bang a flowery
garland on a willow, and fell into the water with all her flowers, and
so died.

And Hamlet had loved her, though his plan of seeming madness had made
him hide it; and when he came back, he found the King and Queen, and the
Court, weeping at the funeral of his dear love and lady.

Ophelia's brother, Laertes, had also just come to Court to ask justice
for the death of his father, old Polonius; and now, wild with grief, he
leaped into his sister's grave, to clasp her in his arms once more.

"I loved her more than forty thousand brothers," cried Hamlet, and leapt
into the grave after him, and they fought till they were parted.

Afterwards Hamlet begged Laertes to forgive him.

"I could not bear," he said, "that any, even a brother, should seem to
love her more than I."

But the wicked Claudius would not let them be friends. He told Laertes
how Hamlet had killed old Polonius, and between them they made a plot to
slay Hamlet by treachery.

Laertes challenged him to a fencing match, and all the Court were
present. Hamlet had the blunt foil always used in fencing, but Laertes
had prepared for himself a sword, sharp, and tipped with poison. And the
wicked King had made ready a bowl of poisoned wine, which he meant
to give poor Hamlet when he should grow warm with the sword play, and
should call for drink.

So Laertes and Hamlet fought, and Laertes, after some fencing, gave
Hamlet a sharp sword thrust. Hamlet, angry at this treachery--for
they had been fencing, not as men fight, but as they play--closed with
Laertes in a struggle; both dropped their swords, and when they picked
them up again, Hamlet, without noticing it, had exchanged his own blunt
sword for Laertes' sharp and poisoned one. And with one thrust of it he
pierced Laertes, who fell dead by his own treachery.

At this moment the Queen cried out, "The drink, the drink! Oh, my dear
Hamlet! I am poisoned!"

She had drunk of the poisoned bowl the King had prepared for Hamlet, and
the King saw the Queen, whom, wicked as he was, he really loved, fall
dead by his means.

Then Ophelia being dead, and Polonius, and the Queen, and Laertes, and
the two courtiers who had been sent to England, Hamlet at last