Laertes (Hamlet) match begins, Hamlet apologises publicly to Laertes for the wrongs he has dealt him. Laertes accepts the apology, so he says, but he proceeds with the scheme to kill Hamlet (though after Gertrude drinks the poisoned drink he expresses having an attack of conscience). Hamlet is eventually wounded with the poisoned sword. Then, in a scuffle, the swords are switched. Hamlet wounds Laertes with his own poisoned blade, and Laertes then falls as well. Only then does he truly seem to feel guilty, for he tells Osric he has been "justly killed" with his own treachery. As he lies dying,
Hamlet (Liszt) is loved by Hamlet, but Hamlet, like every exceptional person, imperiously demands the wine of life and will not content himself with the buttermilk. He wishes to be understood by her without the obligation of explaining himself to her. She collapses under her mission, because she is incapable of loving him in the way that he must be loved, and her madness is only the decrescendo of her feeling, whose lack of sureness has not allowed her to remain on the level of Hamlet." Liszt's "Hamlet" is meant as a psychological study of the title character; only two brief references