stealing steps,
Has clawed me in his clutch,
And has shipt me intil the land,
As if I had never been such.
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 over-reaches,
one that would circumvent God,
might it not?
It might, my lord.
Why...
Even so.
And now my Lady Worm's,
chapless, and knockt about the mazard
with a sexton's spade.
Here's fine revolution!
And we had the trick to see it.
Did these bones cost no more,
but to play at loggats with 'em?
Mine ache to think on it.
I will speak to this fellow.
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.
- Whose grave's this, sirrah?
- Mine, sir.
I think it be thine, indeed,
for thou liest in it.
'Tis a quick lie, sir. 'Twill away
again, from me to you.
What man dost thou dig it for?
For no man, sir.
- What woman, then?
- For none, neither.
Who is to be buried in it?
One that was a woman, sir,
but, rest her soul,
she's dead.
How absolute the knave is!
We must speak by the card,
or equivocation will undo us.
How long have thou been a grave-
maker?
Of all the days in the year, it was
the day that young Hamlet was born.
He that is mad,
and sent into England.
Ay, marry,
why was he sent into England?
Why, because
a' was mad.
A' shall recover his wits there.
Or, if a' do not,
'tis no great matter there.
Why?
'Twill not be seen in him there.
There the men are as mad as he.
How came he mad?
Very strangely, they say.
How strangely?
Faith, even with losing his wits.
Upon what ground?
Why,
here in Denmark.
How long will a man lie
in the earth ere he rot?
I'faith...
If a' be not rotten before a' die, -
we have many pocky corpses now
that will scarce hold the laying in, -
a' will last some eight or nine year.
A tanner will last you nine year.
Why he more than another?
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 has lain you
in the earth three-and-twenty years.
- Whose was it?
- A whoreson mad fellow's it was.
- Whose do you think it was?
- Nay, I know not.
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.
This?
E'en that.
Let me see.
Alas, poor Yorick!
I knew him, Horatio.
A fellow of infinite jest,
of most excellent fancy.
He has 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 flashes of merriment?
Not one now,
to mock your own grinning?
Quite chop-faln?
- Horatio, tell me one thing.
- What's that, my lord?
Dost thou think Alexander looked
o' this fashion in the earth?
E'en so.
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?
'Twere to consider too curiously,
to consider so.
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.
Why of that loam whereto he was turned
might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, turned 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 t'expel
the winter's flaw!
What ceremony else?
Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
As we have warranties.
Her death was doubtful. And, but the
great command oversways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified
have lodged
Till the last trumpet.
For charitable prayers, shards, flints
And pebbles should be thrown on