I bought an unction of a mountebank / So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, / Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, / Collected from all simples that have virtue / Under the moon, can save the thing from death / This is but scratch’d withal.
Act IV, Scene 7 · Laertes
Context
Laertes reveals that he has purchased a deadly poison from a charlatan. He describes its lethality: even the smallest scratch from a blade dipped in it will cause unstoppable death.
Analysis
The word 'mountebank' (a fraud or quack selling fake remedies) introduces a note of sordidness—Laertes has descended to buying poison from the same kind of con artist who peddles false cures, blurring the line between medicine and murder. He then imagines the poison's power in compulsive, excessive detail ('no cataplasm so rare / Collected from all simples that have virtue / Under the moon'), cataloging every remedy that will fail, as though relishing the thoroughness of death. The phrase 'but scratch'd withal' miniaturizes the wound to almost nothing, making murder sound effortless and certain.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Laertes' embrace of poison marks his complete moral degradation—he not only buys death from a 'mountebank' but lovingly details its inescapability, showing how his obsession with revenge has made him as toxically corrupted as the substance he describes, a mirror to the poisoned kingdom itself.