Hoist with his own petard

"Hoist with his own petard" is a saying from a speech in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet that has become proverbial. The phrase's meaning is that a bomb-maker is blown up ("hoist", the past tense of "hoise") off the ground by his own bomb ("petard"), and indicates an ironic reversal or poetic justice. The saying means that a person has been messed up by their own actions.

The letters contain a request from King Claudius to the King of England to have Prince Hamlet killed, but Hamlet manages to modify them during the journey so that they instead request the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet is thus able to return to Denmark in secret to seek his revenge.

 Etymology 

The word "hoist" here is the past participle of the now-archaic verb hoise (since Shakespeare's time, hoist has become the present tense of the verb, with hoisted the past participle), and carries the meaning "to lift and remove".

A "petard" is a "small bomb used to blow in doors and blow holes in walls" and comes from the French , which, through Middle French () and Old French (), comes from the Latin  ("to break wind") or, much more commonly, the slang form "to fart". Although Shakespeare's audiences were probably not familiar with the origin of the word, the related French word  was in common use in English by the 17th century meaning "gun shot of farting" making it appear likely that the double-meaning was intended by the Bard as a joke.

 Notes 

 References 

All references to Hamlet, unless otherwise specified, are taken from the Folger Shakespeare Library's Folger Digital Editions texts edited by Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Under their referencing system, 3.4.225 means act 3, scene 4, line 225.

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Category:William Shakespeare
Category:Phrases