It is curious that Gertrude chooses such a general word for this at this moment. Claudius has specified that the drink is wine – though he, too, generalizes to drink after asking for the wine to be placed on the table at his request.
But – it is the wine that has been poisoned. Has it been rendered a drink by the poison?
Or is Gertrude referring to the act of her drinking? Is the drink the thing she took? Like, the swallow? It is, though, almost more clear in its generalness, I realize now.
For example, if she’d said, “The wine, the wine!” One might assume the wine was bad – like we were just dealing with a bottle gone off instead of poison.
I feel like if I had a sudden bad reaction to something I drank, I’m not sure if I’d go straight to “the drink” – unless it was a fancy cocktail with a silly name – then it would definitely be the drink, the drink that was to blame.
The Hamlet Project 