Hamlet

Exit. King

Let’s follow, Gertrude:
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I this will give it start again;
Therefore let’s follow. Exeunt.

Act V

Scene I

A churchyard.

	Enter two Clowns, with spades, etc.
First Clown	Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation?
Second Clown	I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.
First Clown	How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?
Second Clown	Why, ’tis found so.
First Clown	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.
Second Clown	Nay, but hear you, goodman delver⁠—
First Clown	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 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.
Second Clown	But is this law?
First Clown	Ay, marry, is’t; crowner’s quest law.
Second Clown	Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.
First Clown	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.
Second Clown	Was he a gentleman?
First Clown	A’ was the first that ever bore arms.
Second Clown	Why, he had none.
First Clown	What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says “Adam digged:” could he dig without arms? I’ll put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself⁠—
Second Clown	Go to.
First Clown	What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
Second Clown	The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.
First Clown	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.
Second Clown	“Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?”
First Clown	Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
Second Clown	Marry, now I can tell.
First Clown	To’t.
Second Clown	Mass, I cannot tell.
	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 Clown	Mine, sir. Sings. O, a pit of clay