lord.

Hor. Ay, my Ham. Why e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazard 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 them? mine ache to think on 't.

First Clo.

A pickaxe, 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.

[Sings.

[Throws up another skull.

86

90

Ham. There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits 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 ? 103

Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?

Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

Ham. They are sheep and calves that seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow.-Whose grave's this, sir?

First Clo. Mine, sir.—

O, a pit of clay for to be made

[Sings.

110

For such a guest is meet.

Ham. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in 't.

First Clo. 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.

Ham. 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.

116

First Clo. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again, from me to

First Clo. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

125 Ham. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.-How long hast thou been a grave-maker? 130

First Clo. Of all the days i' the year, I came to 't that day that our last king Hamlet o'ercame Fortinbras.

Ham. How long is that since?

First Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it was the very day that young Hamlet was born: he that was mad, and sent into England.

Ham. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

136

First Clo. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

Ham. Why?

140

First Clo. "Twill not be seen in him; there the men are

as mad as he.

Ham. How came he mad?

First Clo. Very strangely, they say.

Ham. How strangely ?

First Clo. Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

Ham. Upon what ground?

145

First Clo. Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

Ham. How long will a man lie i̇' the earth ere he rot? 150

First Clo. I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die (as we have many corses now-a-days that will scarce hold the laying in), he will last you some eight year or nine year

you nine year.

Ham. Why he more than another?

a tanner will last

155

First Clo. 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 dead body. Here's a skull now: this skull has lain in the earth three-and-twenty years.

Ham. Whose was it?

160

First Clo. A mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was? Ham. Nay, I know not.

First Clo. 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.

Ham. This ?

First Clo. E'en that.

165

Ham. 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 rises 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 chapfallen? 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. 178

Hor. What's that, my lord?

Ham. Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the

earth?

Hor. E'en so.

Ham. And smelt so? pah!

[Puts down the skull.

Hor. E'en so, my lord.

184

Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may

H

not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

Hor. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Ham. 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?

Imperial Cæsar, 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's flaw!

But soft! but soft! aside :-here comes the king.

195

Enter Priests, &c., in procession; the corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES and Mourners following; KING, QUEEN, their Trains, &c.

The queen, the courtiers: who is that they follow ?
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken,

The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life. "Twas of some estate.

200

First Priest. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg'd As we have warrantise: her death was doubtful

1;

And, but that great command o'ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodg'd
Till the last trumpet; for charitable prayers,

210

Shards, flints, and pebbles, should be thrown on her,
Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.

215

Laer. Must there no more be done?

First Priest.

No more be done!

We should profane the service of the dead,
To sing a requiem, and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.

Laer.

Lay her i' the earth;

220

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be,

When thou liest howling.

Ham.

What, the fair Ophelia ! Queen. Sweets to the sweet: farewell!

[Scattering flowers.

225

I hop'd thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
And not have strew'd thy grave.

Laer.

O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Depriv'd thee of !-Hold off the earth a while,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms :

230

[Leaps into the grave.

Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead;
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o'er-top old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.

Ham. [Advancing.] What is he, whose grief

Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? this is I,

Hamlet the Dane.

[Leaps into the grave.

235

Laer.

The devil take thy soul!

240

[Grappling with him.

Ham. Thou pray'st not well.

I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
For, though I am not splenitive and rash,