When in your motion you are hot and dry, / As make your bouts more violent to that end, / And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepar’d him / A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping, / If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck, / Our purpose may hold there.
Act IV, Scene 7 · Claudius
Context
Claudius proposes a backup plan: if Laertes' poisoned sword fails to kill Hamlet during their fencing match, Claudius will offer Hamlet a poisoned drink as a failsafe.
Analysis
Claudius's plan doubles the murder method, layering poison upon poison as though death must be guaranteed through redundancy. The casual phrase 'a chalice for the nonce' (a cup for this specific occasion) makes premeditated murder sound like event planning, and 'whereon but sipping' reduces the killing to a single innocent gesture—Hamlet need only touch his lips to the cup. The cold phrase 'our purpose may hold there' treats the victim's life as a mere logistical problem to be solved, exposing how thoroughly Claudius has detached plotting from any moral feeling.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Claudius's excessive plotting reveals his pathological need for control—the poisoned chalice as 'backup' to the poisoned sword shows a mind that cannot tolerate chance or failure, and this over-determination will ultimately trigger the catastrophic ending when the plan's redundancy causes multiple unintended deaths.