Hamlet

for to be made
For such a guest is meet. Hamlet I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in’t. First Clown 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. 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. First Clown ’Tis a quick lie, sir; ’twill away again, from me to you. Hamlet What man dost thou dig it for? First Clown For no man, sir. Hamlet What woman, then? First Clown For none, neither. Hamlet Who is to be buried in’t? First Clown One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead. Hamlet 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 near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. How long hast thou been a grave-maker? First Clown Of all the days i’ the year, I came to’t that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. Hamlet How long is that since? First 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. Hamlet Ay, marry, why was he sent into England? First 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? First Clown ’Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he. Hamlet How came he mad? First Clown Very strangely, they say. Hamlet How strangely? First Clown Faith, e’en with losing his wits. Hamlet Upon what ground? First Clown Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years. Hamlet How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot? First Clown I’ 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. Hamlet Why he more than another? First Clown 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. Hamlet Whose was it? First Clown A whoreson mad fellow’s it was: whose do you think it was? Hamlet Nay, I know not. First Clown 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. Hamlet This? First Clown E’en that. Hamlet 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 favour she must come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing. Horatio What’s that, my lord? Hamlet Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ the earth? Horatio E’en so. Hamlet And smelt so? pah! Puts down the skull. Horatio E’en so, my lord. Hamlet 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? Horatio ’Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so. Hamlet

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?

Imperious Caesar, 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 flaw!

But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king,

Enter Priests, etc. in procession; the Corpse of Ophelia, Laertes and Mourners following; King, Queen, their trains, etc.

The queen, the courtiers: who is this 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.
Couch we awhile, and mark. Retiring with Horatio.

Laertes What ceremony else? Hamlet

That is Laertes,
A very noble youth: mark.

Laertes What ceremony else? First Priest

Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
As we have warranty: her death was doubtful;
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 bell and burial.

Laertes 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.

Laertes

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.

Hamlet 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.

Laertes

O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived