A sword unbated, and in a pass of practice Requite him for your father.

140

Laer. I will do't: And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank, So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, Collected from all simples that have virtue Under the moon, can save the thing from death That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point

With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, It may be death.

King. Let's further think of this; Weigh what convenience both of time and

means

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So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes.

Laer. Drown'd! O, where ?

Queen. There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;

There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples 170

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them :

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke ; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread

wide;

180

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
'Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
Laer.
Alas, then, she is drown'd?
Queen. Drown'd, drown'd.

Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c.

First Clo. Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation ?

Sec. Clo. I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial. First Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence? Sec. Clo. Why, 'tis found so.

First Clo. It must be 'se offendendo;' it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act : and an act hath three branches: it is, to act, to do, to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

Sec. Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,

First Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good; if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes,-mark yon that; but if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life. But is this law?

Sec. Clo. First Clo. law.

Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest

Sec. Clo. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.

First Clo. Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam's profession.

Sec. Clo. Was he a gentleman ?

First Clo. He was the first that ever bore

First Clo. I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows does well; but how does it well? it does well to those that do ill now thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church: argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.

Sec. Clo. 'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter ?'

First Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke. Sec. Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

First Clo. To't.

Sec. Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

60

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance. First Clo. 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 Sec. Clown. [He digs and sings. In youth, when I did love, did love, Methought it was very sweet, 70 To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove, O, methought, there was nothing meet. Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?

Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

Ham. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense. First Clo. [Sings.]

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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. Ham. 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? Hor. It might, my lord.

89

Ham. Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might be my lord such-aone, that praised my lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

Hor. Ay, my lord.

Ham. 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,

101

First Clo. [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. Ham. 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?

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham. Is not parchment made of sheepskins?

Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too. Ham. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose grave's this, sirrah?

First Clo. Mine, sir.

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[Sings] O, a pit of clay for to be made 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.

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

140

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for? First Clo. For no man, sir.

Ham. What woman, then?

First Clo. For none, neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in't?

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

Ham. 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 hear the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

First Clo. Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame 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 is mad, and sent into England.

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

Ham. How came he mad?

First Clo. Very strangely, they say.
Ham. How strangely?

170

First Clo. Faith, e'en with losing his wits. Ham. Upon what ground?

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

Hum. How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot? 179

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

Ham. Why he more than another?

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 whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years.

Ham. Whose was it?

191

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 chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must coine; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

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!

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[Puts down the skull. Hor. E'en so, my lord. Ham. 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? [consider so. Hor. "Twere to consider too curiously, to

Ham. No, faith, nota 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 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!

And, but that great command o'ersways the order,

She should in ground unsanctified have lodged Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers, Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on

her;

Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments and the bringing home

Of hell and burial.

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.

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Lay her i' the earth: And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest. A ministering angel shall my sister be, When thou liest howling.

Ham. What, the fair Ophelia ! Queen. Sweets to the sweet: farewell! [Scattering flowers. I hoped 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, 270 Whose wicked deed thy most ingemous sense Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,