1 CLO. But age, with his stealing steps,

Hath caught* me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me intill* the land,
As if I had never been such."

(6)

[Throws up a scull.

HAM. That scull 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 o'er-offices; one that could circumvent God, might it not?

HOR. It might, my lord,

HAM. Or of a courtier; which could say, Goodmorrow, 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; (8) might it not?

HOR. Ay, my lord.

HAM. 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 them? mine ache to think on't.

1 CLO. A pick-axe and a spade, a spade, [Sings. For-and a shrouding sheet:(10)

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

[Throws up a scull.

HAM. There's another: Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits() now, his quillets, (12) his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce (13) with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery?

the trick] Knack, faculty.

❤ clawed, 4tos.

⚫ into. 4tos.

• sirra, 4tos.

b

Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, (4) his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: (15) 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?

HOR. Not a jot more, my lord.

HAM. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins? HOR. Ay, my lord, and of calves-skins too. HAM. They are sheep, and calves, which seek out assurance (16) in that. I will speak to this fellow: (17)-Whose grave's this, sir?

1 CLO. Mine, sir.

*

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

[Sings.

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

1 CLO. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine.

HAM. 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.

1 CLO. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again, from me to you.

HAM. What man dost thou dig it for?

is this the fine of his fines] The end of, or utmost attained

by, the operation of all this legal machinery.

b vouch him no more] Answer for, or assure him.

1 CLO. For no man, sir.

HAM. What woman then?

1 CLO. For none neither.

HAM. Who is to be buried in't?

1 CLO. One, that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

HAM. How absolute the knave is!" we must speak by the card,(18) or equivocation will undo us. By the lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age is grown so picked,(19) 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?

1 CLO. Of all the days i'the year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

HAM. How long's that since?

1 CLO. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: It was that very day that young Hamlet was born: (20) he that is mad, and sent into England.

HAM. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

1 CLO. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, 'tis no great matter there.

HAM. Why?

1 CLO. 'Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

HAM. How came he mad?

1 CLO. Very strangely, they say.

HAM. How strangely?

1 CLO. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

• How absolute the knave is] Peremptory, strictly and tyrannously precise.

HAM. Upon what ground?

1 CLO. Why, here in Denmark. I have been So 4tos. sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

sixeteene,

1623. sexestone, 1632.

HAM. How long will a man lie i'the earth ere he rot?

1 Czo. '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.

HAM. Why he more than another?

1 CLO. 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 scull now: this scull has lain in the earth three-and-twenty years.

HAM. Whose was it?

1 CLO. A whoreson mad fellow's it was; Whose do you think it was?

HAM. Nay, I know not.

1 CLO. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue!() he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same scull, sir, was Yorick's scull, the king's jester.

HAM. This?

1 CLO. E'en that.

[Takes the Scull.

HAM. 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

4tos.

jeering?* quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my grinning, lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. Pr'ythee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

HOR. What's that, my lord?

HAM. Dost thou think, Alexander looked o'this fashion i'the earth?

HOR. E'en so.

HAM. And smelt so? pah!

HOR. E'en so, my lord.

[Throws down the Scull.

HAM. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Ålexander, till he find it stopping a bunghole?

HOR. "Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

HAM. 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 to dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loȧm: And why of that loam, whereto he was converted,, might they not stop a beer-barrel?

Imperial Cæsar, dead, and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that the earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw! (25)
But soft! but soft! aside; Here comes the king,

⚫favour] Feature. See M. N. Dr. İ. 1. Helena.

Twere to consider too curiously] Be pressing the argument with too much critical nicety, to dwell upon mere possibilities.

See Tam, of Shr. IV. 4. Pedant.