HAMLET

 from Act V Scene I
 A churchyard.
 [Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance]
 
 First Clown            Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull
 ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when
 you are asked this question next, say 'a
 grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till
 doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a
 stoup of liquor.
 
 [Exit Second Clown]
 
 [He digs and sings]
 
 In youth, when I did love, did love,
 Methought it was very sweet,
 To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
 O, methought, there was nothing meet.
 
 HAMLET               Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he
 sings at grave-making?
 
 HORATIO            Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
 
 HAMLET             'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath
 the daintier sense.
 
 First Clown[Sings]
 
 But age, with his stealing steps,
 Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
 And hath shipped me intil the land,
 As if I had never been such.
 
 [Throws up a skull]
 
 HAMLET           That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once:
 how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
 Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It
 might be the pate of a politician, which this ass
 now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God,
 might it not?
 
 HORATIO         It might, my lord.
 
 HAMLET           Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow,
 sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might
 be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord
 such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?
 
 HORATIO         Ay, my lord.
 
 HAMLET          Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and
 knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade:
 here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to
 see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding,
 but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.
 
 First Clown: [Sings]
 
 A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
 For and a shrouding sheet:
 O, a pit of clay for to be made
 For such a guest is meet.
 
 [Throws up another skull]
 
 HAMLET             There's another: why may not that be the skull of a
 lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets,
 his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he
 suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the
 sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of
 his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be
 in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes,
 his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers,
 his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and
 the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine
 pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him
 no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than
 the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The
 very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in
 this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?
 
 HORATIO            Not a jot more, my lord.
 
 HAMLET              Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
 
 HORATIO            Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
 
 HAMLET             They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance
 in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose
 grave's this, sirrah?
 
 First ClownMine, sir.
 
 [Sings]
 
 O, a pit of clay for to be made
 For such a guest is meet.
 
 HAMLET              I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.
 
 First Clown         You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not
 yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.
 
 HAMLET              'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine:
 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.
 
 First Clown          'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to
 you.
 
 HAMLET             What man dost thou dig it for?
 
 First Clown         For no man, sir.
 
 HAMLET              What woman, then?
 
 First Clown          For none, neither.
 
 HAMLET             Who is to be buried in't?
 
 First Clown          One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.
 
 HAMLET             How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the
 card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord,
 Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of
 it; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the
 peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he
 gaffs his kibe. How long hast thou been a
 grave-maker?
 
 First Clown          Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day
 that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
 
 HAMLET             How long is that since?
 
 First Clown       Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it
 was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that
 is mad, and sent into England.
 
 HAMLET             Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
 
 First Clown         Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
 there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.
 
 HAMLET            Why?
 
 First Clown        'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men
 are as mad as he.
 
 HAMLET             How came he mad?
 
 First Clown          Very strangely, they say.
 
 HAMLET             How strangely?
 
 First Clown         Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
 
 HAMLET            Upon what ground?
 
 First Clown        Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man
 and boy, thirty years.
 
 HAMLETHow long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?
 
 First Clown       I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die--as we
 have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce
 hold the laying in--he will last you some eight year
 or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.
 
 HAMLET          Why he more than another?
 
 First Clown      Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that
 he will keep out water a great while; and your water
 is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
 Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth
 three and twenty years.
 
 HAMLET       Whose was it?
 
 First Clown     A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?
 
 HAMLET        Nay, I know not.
 
 First Clown        A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a
 flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull,
 sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
 
 HAMLET      This?
 
 First Clown    E'en that.
 
 HAMLET      Let me see.
 
 [Takes the skull]
 
 Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
 of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
 borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
 abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
 it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
 not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
 gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
 that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
 now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
 Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
 her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
 come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell
 me one thing.
 
 HORATIO       What's that, my lord?
 
 HAMLET         Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'
 the earth?
 
 HORATIO      E'en so.
 
 HAMLET      And smelt so? pah!
 
 [Puts down the skull]
 
 HORATIO      E'en so, my lord.
 
 HAMLET      To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may
 not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,
 till he find it stopping a bung-hole?
 
 HORATIO'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
 
 HAMLET    No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
 modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as
 thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
 Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
 earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
 was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
 Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
 Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
 O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
 Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
 But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.