First Clown

Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?

Second Clown

I tell thee she is; 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 an't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out a' 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 gentlemen 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 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.

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 he makes lasts till doomsday. Go, get thee in and fetch me a stoup of liquor.

Hamlet

Has this fellow no feeling of his business, 'a sings in 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

Hamlet

That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if 'twere Cain's jaw-bone, 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?

Horatio

It might, my lord.

Hamlet

Or of a courtier; which could say “Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, sweet lord?” This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one's horse, when 'a 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

Hamlet

There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillities, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this mad 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?

Horatio

Not a jot more, my lord.

Hamlet

Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?

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.

Hamlet

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

First 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.

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, this three years I have took 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 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 that 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 'a was mad: 'a shall recover his wits there; or, if 'a do not, 'tis 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

Faith, if 'a be not rotten before 'a die as we have many pocky corses that will scarce hold the laying in 'a 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 'a will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now; hath lien you i' 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, sir, Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

Hamlet

This?

First Clown

E'en that.

Hamlet

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 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 a' this fashion i' the earth?

Horatio

E'en so.

Hamlet

And smelt so? pah!

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 'a find it stopping a bung-hole?

Horatio

'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Hamlet

But soft! but soft awhile: here comes the king, Enter Priests, c. in procession; the Corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES and Mourners following; KING, QUEEN, their trains, c.

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 it 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?

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 been lodged

Till the last trumpet; for charitable prayers,

Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her:

Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants,

Her maiden strewments and the bringing home

Of bell and burial.

Laertes

Must there no more be done?

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!

Gertrude

Sweets to the sweet: farewell! Scattering flowers.

I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;

I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,

And not have strewed thy grave.

Laertes

O, treble woe

Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,

Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense

Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,

Till I have caught her once more in mine arms: Leaps into the grave.

Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,

Till of this flat a mountain you have made,

To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head

Of blue Olympus.

Hamlet

Advancing

What is he whose grief

Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow

Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand

Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,

Hamlet the Dane. Leaps into the grave.

Laertes

The devil take thy soul! Grappling with him.

Hamlet

Thou pray'st not well.

I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;

For, though I am not splenitive and rash,

Yet have I in me something dangerous,

Which let thy wisdom fear: hold off thy hand.

King

Pluck them asunder.

Gertrude

Hamlet, Hamlet!

All

Gentlemen,

Horatio

Good my lord, be quiet. The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave.

Hamlet

Why, I will fight with him upon this theme

Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

Gertrude

O my son, what theme?

Hamlet

I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers

Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

King

O, he is mad, Laertes.

Gertrude

For love of God, forbear him.

Hamlet

'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:

Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?

Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?

I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?

To outface me with leaping in her grave?

Be buried quick with her, and so will I:

And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw

Millions of acres on us, till our ground,

Singeing his pate against the burning zone,

Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,

I'll rant as well as thou.

Gertrude

This is mere madness:

And thus awhile the fit will work on him;

Anon, as patient as the female dove,

When that her golden couplets are disclosed,

His silence will sit drooping.

Hamlet

Hear you, sir;

What is the reason that you use me thus?

I loved you ever: but it is no matter;

Let Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat will mew and dog will have his day. Exit.

King

I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him. Exit Horatio.To Laertes

Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech;

We'll put the matter to the present push.

Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.

This grave shall have a living monument:

An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;

Till then, in patience our proceeding be. Exeunt.