Hamlet (Modern, based on the First Folio)

3190Clown Is she to be buried in Christian burial, that ¶willfully seeks her own salvation?

¶Other I tell thee she is; therefore make her grave ¶straight. The crowner hath sat on her, and finds it 3195Christian burial.

Clown How can that be, unless she drowned herself in ¶her own defense?

¶Other Why, 'tis found so.

¶Clown It must be se offendendo , it cannot be else. For ¶here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it 3200argues an act, and an act hath three branches: it is an ¶act, to do, and to perform. Argal, she drowned herself ¶wittingly.

¶Other Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.

¶Clown Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. 3205Here stands the man; good. If the man go to this ¶water and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes; ¶mark you 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.

3210Other But is this law?

¶Clown Ay, marry, is't, crowner's quest law.

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

3215Clown Why, there thou say'st, and the more pity that ¶great folk should have countenance in this world to ¶drown or hang themselves more then their ¶even-Christen. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen ¶but gardeners, ditchers, and gravemakers. They hold up 3220Adam's profession.

¶Other Was he a gentleman?

¶Clown He was the first that ever bore arms.

¶Other Why, he had none.

¶Clown Why, art a heathen? How dost thou 3225understand the Scripture? The Scripture says Adam digged. ¶ Could he did without arms? I'll put another ¶question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the purpose, ¶confess thyself--

¶Other Go to.

3230Clown What is he that builds stronger than either the ¶mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

¶Other The gallows-maker, for that outlives a ¶thousand tenants.

¶Clown I like thy wit well, in good faith, the gallows 3235does 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.

¶Other "Who builds stronger than a mason, a 3240shipwright, or a carpenter?"

¶Clown Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

¶Other Marry, now I can tell.

¶Clown To't.

¶Other Mass, I cannot tell.

¶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 he makes lasts till doomsday. Go, get thee 3250to Youghan, fetch me a stoop of liquor.

¶Hamlet Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that ¶he sings at gravemaking?

¶Horatio Custom hath made it in him a property of ¶easiness.

3260Hamlet 'Tis e'en so. The hand of little employment hath ¶the daintier sense.

¶Clown

¶Hamlet That skull had a tongue in it and could sing ¶once. How the knave jowls it to th' ground, as if it ¶were Cain's jawbone, that did the first murder! It 3270 might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now ¶o'erreaches, 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, sweet lord?" This 3275might 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 mazard with a sexton's 3280spade. Here's fine revolution, if 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.

¶Clown

¶Hamlet There's another. Why may not that be the 3290skull 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 3295time 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 3300double 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 th'inheritor himself ¶have no more? Ha?

¶Horatio Not a jot more, my lord.

3305Hamlet Is not parchment made of sheepskins?

¶Horatio Ay, my lord, and of calves' skins too.

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

3310Clown Mine, sir.

¶Hamlet I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in't.

¶Clown You lie out on't, sir, and therefore 'tis not yours. 3315For 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.

¶Clown 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again from me 3320to you.

¶Hamlet What man dost thou dig it for?

¶Clown For no man, sir.

¶Hamlet What woman, then?

¶Clown For none, neither.

3325Hamlet Who is to be buried in't?

¶Clown One that was a woman, sir, but, rest her soul, ¶she's dead.

¶Hamlet [To Horatio] How absolute the knave is! We must speak ¶by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the 3330Lord, 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 heels of the courtier he galls his ¶kibe.--How long hast thou been grave-maker?

¶Clown Of the days i'th' year, I came to't that day 3335that our last King Hamlet o'ercame Fortiinbras.

¶Hamlet How long is that since?

¶Clown Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. ¶It was the very day that young Hamlet was born--he into ¶that was mad and sent into England.

3340Hamlet Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

¶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?

¶Clown 'Twill not be seen in him. There the men are as mad as he.

¶Hamlet How came he mad?

¶Clown Very strangely, they say.

¶Hamlet How, strangely?

¶Clown Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

3350Hamlet Upon what ground?

¶Clown Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton ¶here, man and boy, thirty years.

¶Hamlet How long will a man lie i'th' earth ere he rot?

¶Clown Faith, if he be not rotten before 'a die--as we have 3355many pocky corses 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?

¶Clown Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade that 3360he will keep out water a great while; and your water ¶is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. [He picks up a skull.] Here's a skull ¶now. This skull hath lain i'th' earth tree-and-twenty years.

¶Hamlet Whose was it?

¶Clown A whoreson mad fellow's it was. 3365Whose do you think it was?

¶Hamlet Nay, I know not.

¶Clown A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! 'A poured a ¶flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, ¶sir, this same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the King's jester.

3370Hamlet This?

¶Clown E'en that.

¶Hamlet Let me see. Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, ¶Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He ¶hath bore me on his back a thousand times; and how 3375abhorred 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? No one now to mock your own 3380jeering? Quite chop-fall'n? Now get you to my lady's ¶chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this ¶favor she must come. Make her laugh at that. ¶Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

¶Horatio What's that, my lord?

3385Hamlet Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'th' earth?

¶Horatio E'en so.

¶Hamlet And smelt so? Pah!

¶Horatio E'en so, my lord.

3390Hamlet To what base uses we may return, Horatio! ¶Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of ¶Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?

¶Horatio 'Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.

¶Hamlet No, faith, not a jot. But to follow him thither with modesty 3395enough, and likelihood to lead it, as thus: ¶Alexander died; Alexander was buried; Alexander ¶returneth to 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?