And so have I a noble father lost, / A sister driven into desperate terms, / Whose worth, if praises may go back again, / Stood challenger on mount of all the age / For her perfections. But my revenge will come.
Act IV, Scene 7 · Laertes
Context
Laertes responds to Claudius by cataloging his losses: his father murdered, his sister driven mad. He speaks of Ophelia's former excellence before declaring his intent to seek revenge.
Analysis
Laertes places Ophelia 'on mount' as a challenger to the entire age, using the elevated physical terrain to mirror her moral superiority—she stood literally above her generation. Yet he speaks of her 'worth' in the conditional past tense ('if praises may go back again'), acknowledging that her madness has already erased the perfections he claims to honor. The abrupt pivot to 'But my revenge will come' abandons eulogy mid-sentence, exposing how quickly his grief converts to aggression and how little space he actually gives to mourning her.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Laertes' rhetoric of honor masks his inability to sustain genuine grief—he interrupts his own praise of Ophelia to reassert his revenge plot, revealing that his real investment is in restoring his own masculine reputation, not memorializing his sister.