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I figure twice -- once when he stuck his sword blindly through the arras and ended up getting Polonius instead, and once in front of everybody in the final scene when he both stabbed and poisoned the "incestuous, murdered, damned Dane." That one, of course, succeeded. I don't count the scene when Claudius is at prayer, because here Hamlet has a chance to kill him, but doesn't take it. |
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I'd agree with your account above, although it could be argued that he tries 3 times -- in stabbing him with the poisoned sword AND giving him the poisoned wine, he's trying to kill him in two different ways at the same time. Since these were the two different methods Claudius and Laertes were devising to kill Hamlet, primarily as insurance that one or the other would kill him, it seems to me that using both of them on Claudius is like Hamlet is making sure one or the other kills Claudius. However, this is somewhat convoluted, I admit. |
