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.

A petard from a 17th-century manuscript of military designs

There's letters sealed; and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work,
For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard; and 't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet
When in one line two crafts directly meet.

— Prince Hamlet, in Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4.

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

See also: petard

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 pétard, which, through Middle French (péter) and Old French (pet), comes from the Latin pedere ("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 petarade 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.

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.

Bibliography

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• Harper, Douglas (ed.). "petard". Online Etymology Dictionary.
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Further reading

• Benjamin, Roy (2008). "The Stone of Stumbling in Finnegans Wake". Journal of Modern Literature. 31 (2). Indiana University Press: 66–78. doi:10.2979/jml.2008.31.2.66. eISSN 1529-1464. ISSN 0022-281X. JSTOR 30053269.
• Beaulieu, Liliane (1999). "Bourbaki's Art of Memory". Osiris. 14 (Commemorative Practices in Science: Historical Perspectives on the Politics of Collective Memory). The History of Science Society: 219–251. doi:10.1086/649309. eISSN 1933-8287. ISSN 0369-7827. JSTOR 301970. S2CID 143559711.
• Broude, Ronald (1971). "Time, Truth, and Right in The Spanish Tragedy". Studies in Philology. 68 (2). University of North Carolina Press: 130–145. eISSN 1543-0383. ISSN 0039-3738. JSTOR 4173715.
• Brucher, Richard T. (1981). "Fantasies of Violence: Hamlet and The Revenger's Tragedy". SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900. 21 (2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama). Rice University: 257–270. doi:10.2307/450148. eISSN 1522-9270. ISSN 0039-3657. JSTOR 450148.
• Cannon, Charles K. (1971). "'As in a Theater': Hamlet in the Light of Calvin's Doctrine of Predestination". SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900. 11 (2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama). Rice University: 203–222. doi:10.2307/450060. eISSN 1522-9270. JSTOR 450060.
• Coyle, William (1951). "Trollope and the Bi-Columned Shakespeare". Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 6 (1). University of California Press: 33–46. doi:10.2307/3044283. ISSN 0029-0564. JSTOR 3044283.
• Green, L. C. (1962). "The Nature of International Law". The University of Toronto Law Journal. 14 (2). University of Toronto Press: 176–193. doi:10.2307/825321. eISSN 1710-1174. ISSN 0042-0220. JSTOR 825321.
• Halpern, Richard (2008). "Eclipse of Action: Hamlet and the Political Economy of Playing". Shakespeare Quarterly. 59 (4). Folger Shakespeare Library: 450–482. doi:10.1353/shq.0.0046. eISSN 1538-3555. ISSN 0037-3222. JSTOR 40210299. S2CID 153398058.
• Hamill, Paul (1974). "Death's Lively Image: The Emblematic Significance of the Closet Scene in Hamlet". Texas Studies in Literature and Language. 16 (2). University of Texas Press: 249–262. eISSN 1534-7303. ISSN 0040-4691. JSTOR 40754321.
• Highet, Keith (1987). "Between a Rock and a Hard Place— The United States, the International Court, and the Nicaragua Case". The International Lawyer. 21 (4). American Bar Association: 1083–1101. eISSN 2169-6578. ISSN 0020-7810. JSTOR 40706826.
• Johnson-Haddad, Miranda (1994). "The Shakespeare Theatre, 1992–93". Shakespeare Quarterly. 45 (1). Folger Shakespeare Library: 98–108. doi:10.2307/2871298. eISSN 1538-3555. ISSN 0037-3222. JSTOR 2871298.
• Mazzio, Carlo (2009). "The History of Air: Hamlet and the Trouble with Instruments". South Central Review. 26 (1/2, Shakespeare & Science). The South Central Modern Language Association: 153–196. doi:10.1353/scr.0.0039. eISSN 1549-3377. ISSN 0743-6831. JSTOR 40211295. S2CID 145779224.
• McDonald, Charles O. (1962). "'Decorum', 'Ethos', and 'Pathos' in the Heroes of Elizabethan Tragedy, with Particular Reference To Hamlet". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 61 (2). University of Illinois Press: 330–348. ISSN 0363-6941. JSTOR 27714016.
• Noya, Shannon T. (1996). "Hoisted by Their Own Petard: Adverse Inferences in Civil Forfeiture". The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 86 (2). Northwestern University School of Law: 493–529. doi:10.2307/1144034. ISSN 0091-4169. JSTOR 1144034.
• Page, Warren; Hersh, Reuben; Selden, Annie; Selden, John (2005). "Media Highlights". The College Mathematics Journal. 36 (1). Mathematical Association of America: 80–88. doi:10.1080/07468342.2005.11922113. eISSN 1931-1346. ISSN 0746-8342. JSTOR 30044827. S2CID 218543413.
• Pyles, Thomas (1949). "Innocuous Linguistic Indecorum: A Semantic Byway". Modern Language Notes. 64 (1). The Johns Hopkins University Press: 1–8. doi:10.2307/2909241. ISSN 0149-6611. JSTOR 2909241.
• Renehan, Robert (1973). "A Proverbial Expression in Tacitus". Classical Philology. 68 (2). The University of Chicago Press: 114–115. doi:10.1086/365945. eISSN 1546-072X. ISSN 0009-837X. JSTOR 269062. S2CID 162200050.
• Rowe, C. J.; Welbourne, M.; Williams, C. J. F. (1982). "Knowledge, Perception and Memory: Theaetetus 166b". The Classical Quarterly. 32 (2). The Classical Association: 304–306. doi:10.1017/s0009838800026471. eISSN 1471-6844. ISSN 0009-8388. JSTOR 638569. S2CID 170326049.
• Searle, Leroy F. (1997). "The Conscience of the King: Oedipus, Hamlet, and the Problem of Reading". Comparative Literature. 49 (4). Duke University Press / University of Oregon: 316–343. doi:10.2307/1771535. eISSN 1945-8517. ISSN 0010-4124. JSTOR 1771535.
• Speaight, Robert (1971). "Shakespeare in Britain". Shakespeare Quarterly. 22 (4). Folger Shakespeare Library: 359–364. doi:10.2307/2868911. eISSN 1538-3555. ISSN 0037-3222. JSTOR 2868911.
• Taylor, Michael (1971). "The Conflict in Hamlet". Shakespeare Quarterly. 22 (2). Folger Shakespeare Library: 147–161. doi:10.2307/2868804. eISSN 1538-3555. ISSN 0037-3222. JSTOR 2868804.
• Werstine, Paul (1988). "The Textual Mystery of Hamlet". Shakespeare Quarterly. 39 (1). Folger Shakespeare Library: 1–26. doi:10.2307/2870584. eISSN 1538-3555. JSTOR 2870584.
• Ziolkowski, Theodore (1984). "The Existential Anxieties of Engineering". The American Scholar. 53 (2). The Phi Beta Kappa Society: 197–218. eISSN 2162-2892. ISSN 0003-0937. JSTOR 41211029.

Other websites

The dictionary definition of hoist by one's own petard at Wiktionary