The Quintessential Shakespeare: 11 Most Famous Plays in One Edition. William Shakespeare
‘twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o’erreaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?
Hor.
It might, my lord.
Ham. 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?
Hor.
Ay, my lord.
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 loggets with ‘em? mine ache to think on’t.
1 Clown.
[Sings.]
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.
[Throws up another skull].
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 scarcely 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, sir?
1 Clown.
Mine, sir.
[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.
1 Clown.
You lie out on’t, sir, and therefore ‘tis not yours: for my part,
I do not lie in’t, 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.
1 Clown. ‘Tis a quick lie, sir; ‘t will away again from me to you.
Ham.
What man dost thou dig it for?
1 Clown. For no man, sir.
Ham.
What woman then?
1 Clown. For none neither.
Ham.
Who is to be buried in’t?
1 Clown. 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 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?
1 Clown. 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?
1 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.
Ham.
Ay, marry, why was be sent into England?
1 Clown. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, it’s no great matter there.
Ham.
Why?
1 Clown. ‘Twill not he seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.
Ham.
How came he mad?
1 Clown. Very strangely, they say.
Ham.
How strangely?
1 Clown. Faith, e’en with losing his wits.
Ham.
Upon what ground?
1 Clown. Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.
Ham.
How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?
1 Clown. 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.
Ham.
Why he more than another?
1 Clown. Why, sir, his hide is so tann’d 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 hath lain in the earth three-and-twenty years.
Ham.
Whose was it?
1 Clown. A whoreson, mad fellow’s it was: whose do you think it was?
Ham.
Nay, I know not.
1 Clown.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! ‘a pour’d a flagon of
Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s
skull, the king’s jester.
Ham.
This?
1 Clown. E’en that.
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 kiss’d 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.—Pr’ythee, 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!
[Throws 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?
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