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,
Critical approaches to Hamlet points to the identity of Shakespeare's dead son Hamnet and the name 'Hamlet'. "Just as "Hamlet" deals with the relation of a son to his parents", Freud concludes, "so "Macbeth" (written at approximately the same period) is concerned with the subject of childlessness". Having made these suggestions, however, Freud offers a caveat: he has unpacked only "one" of the many motives and impulses operating in the author's mind, albeit, Freud claims, one that operates from "the deepest layer". Later in the same book, having used psychoanalysis to explain "Hamlet", Freud uses Hamlet to explain the nature of dreams: in disguising