Last words in Shakespeare

The last words of characters in Shakespeare. In a minority of cases, a description of a character's off-stage death is included.

Antony and Cleopatra

 * I am dying, Egypt, dying:
 * Give me some wine, and let me speak a little. ..
 * The miserable change now at my end
 * Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts
 * In feeding them with those my former fortunes
 * Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o' the world,
 * The noblest; and do now not basely die,
 * Not cowa

h'd. Now my spirit is going;
 * I can no more.
 * - Antony


 * As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle,--
 * O Antony!--Nay, I will take thee too.
 * What should I stay--
 * - Cleopatra, as she applies the second asp to her arm.

Hamlet

 * O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt!
 * - Claudius


 * O, I am slain!
 * - Polonius


 * He is justly served;
 * It is a poison temper'd by himself.
 * Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
 * Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
 * Nor thine on me.
 * - Laertes, talking of Claudius


 * O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,
 * Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
 * If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
 * Absent thee from felicity awhile,
 * And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
 * To tell my story. ..
 * O, I die, Horatio;
 * The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:
 * I cannot live to hear the news from England;
 * But I do prophesy the election lights
 * On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
 * So tell him, with the occurrences, more and less,
 * Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
 * - Hamlet


 * No, no, the drink, the drink!—O my dear Hamlet! —
 * The drink, the drink! I am poison’d.
 * - Gertrude

Henry IV, part 1
O, Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth! I better brook the loss of brittle life Than those proud titles thou hast won of me; They wound my thoughts worse than sword my flesh: But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool; And time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy, But that the earthy and cold hand of death Lies on my tongue: no, Percy, thou art dust And food for--

Dies

Henry IV, part 2

 * Laud be to God! even there my life must end.
 * It hath been prophesied to me many years,
 * I should not die but in Jerusalem;
 * Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land:
 * But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;
 * In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.
 * - King Henry IV

Henry V

 * a' parted even just between twelve
 * and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for after
 * I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with
 * flowers and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew
 * there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as
 * a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. 'How now,
 * sir John!' quoth I 'what, man! be o' good
 * cheer.' So a' cried out 'God, God, God!' three or
 * four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a'
 * should not think of God; I hoped there was no need
 * to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So
 * a' bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my
 * hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as
 * cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and
 * they were as cold as any stone, and so upward and
 * upward, and all was as cold as any stone.
 * - Mistress Quickly
 * They say he cried out of sack.
 * - Nym
 * Ay, that a' did.
 * - Mistress Quickly
 * And of women.
 * - Bardolph
 * Nay, that a' did not.
 * - Mistress Quickly
 * Yes, that a' did; and said they were devils incarnate.
 * - Boy describing Falstaff's death. Falstaff actually dies offstage.

Julius Caesar

 * Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar!
 * - Julius Caesar


 * Caesar, thou art revenged,
 * Even with the sword that kill'd thee.
 * - Cassius


 * Caesar, now be still:
 * I kill'd not thee with half so good a will.
 * - Brutus, as he runs on his sword

King John

 * O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye:
 * The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd,
 * And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail
 * Are turned to one thread, one little hair:
 * My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
 * Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
 * And then all this thou seest is but a clod
 * And module of confounded royalty.
 * - King John

King Lear

 * And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!
 * Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
 * And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,
 * Never, never, never, never, never!
 * Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.
 * Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
 * Look there, look there!
 * - King Lear


 * Slave, thou hast slain me: villain, take my purse:
 * If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body;
 * And give the letters which thou find'st about me
 * To Edmund Earl of Gloucester, seek him out
 * Upon the British party: O, untimely death!
 * - Oswald

Macbeth

 * I will not yield,
 * To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
 * And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
 * Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
 * And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
 * Yet I will try the last. Before my body
 * I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
 * And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'
 * - Macbeth


 * He has kill'd me, mother:
 * Run away, I pray you!
 * - Macduff's son

O treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge-O slave!
 * - Banquo

Othello

 * O, who hath done this deed?
 * - Emilia
 * Nobody; I myself. Farewell.
 * Commend me to my kind lord: O, farewell!
 * - Desdemona


 * What did thy song bode, lady?
 * Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan,
 * And die in music. [sings] 'Willow, willow, willow.'--
 * Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor;
 * So come my soul to bliss as I speak true;
 * So speaking as I think, I die... I die.
 * - Emilia


 * Demand me nothing: what you know, you know:
 * From this time forth I never will speak word.
 * - Iago, who does not die onstage, but who is being led to his immediate torture and eventual death.


 * Soft you; a word or two before you go.
 * I have done the state some service, and they know't.
 * No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
 * When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
 * Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
 * Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
 * Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
 * Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought
 * Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,
 * Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
 * Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
 * Albeit unused to the melting mood,
 * Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
 * Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
 * And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
 * Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
 * Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
 * I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
 * And smote him, thus.
 * - Othello
 * Stabs himself
 * O bloody period!
 * - Lododvico
 * All that's spoke is marr'd.
 * - Gratiano
 * I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee: no way but this;
 * Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.
 * - Othello
 * Falls on the bed, and dies

Richard II

 * O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
 * For that I was his father Edward's son;
 * That blood already, like the pelican,
 * Hast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:
 * My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,
 * Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!
 * May be a precedent and witness good
 * That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:
 * Join with the present sickness that I have;
 * And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
 * To crop at once a too long wither'd flower.
 * Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
 * These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
 * Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:
 * Love they to live that love and honour have.
 * - John of Gaunt


 * That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire
 * That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
 * Hath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land.
 * Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;
 * Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.
 * - King Richard II

Richard III

 * Which of you, if you were a prince's son,
 * Being pent from liberty, as I am now,
 * if two such murderers as yourselves came to you,
 * Would not entreat for life?
 * My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks:
 * O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
 * Come thou on my side, and entreat for me,
 * As you would beg, were you in my distress
 * A begging prince what beggar pities not?
 * - Clarence


 * Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
 * And I will stand the hazard of the die:
 * I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
 * Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
 * A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
 * - King Richard III, just before he engages in the fight with Richmond in which he dies.


 * Let's to it pell-mell
 * If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell!
 * - Richard III, Ian McKellen and Richard Loncraine movie adaptation, taken from Richard's speech earlier in the play.

Romeo and Juliet

 * Here, here will I remain
 * With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
 * Will I set up my everlasting rest,
 * And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
 * From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
 * Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
 * The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
 * A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
 * Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
 * Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
 * The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
 * Here's to my love!
 * O true apothecary!
 * Thy drugs are quick. Thus, with a kiss, I die.
 * - Romeo


 * Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
 * What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?
 * Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
 * O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
 * To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;
 * Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
 * To make die with a restorative.
 * Thy lips are warm.


 * Yea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!
 * This is thy sheath;
 * there rust, and let me die.
 * - Juliet


 * Help me into some house, Benvolio,
 * Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!
 * They have made worms' meat of me: I have it,
 * And soundly too: your houses!
 * - Mercutio


 * Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,
 * Shall with him hence.
 * - Tybalt


 * O, I am slain! If thou be merciful,
 * Open the tomb; lay me with Juliet.
 * - Count Paris

Titus Andronicus

 * O, why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb?
 * I am no baby, I, that with base prayers
 * I should repent the evils I have done:
 * Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did
 * Would I perform, if I might have my will;
 * If one good deed in all my life I did,
 * I do repent it from my very soul.
 * - Aaron the Moor