Complete Plays, The (93 page)

Exeunt

A
CT
V

S
CENE
I. A
CHURCHYARD
.

Enter two Clowns, with spades, & c

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

He 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 in: 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 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 gain, 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 gaffs 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, a 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 rims 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 Priest, & c. in procession; the Corpse of Ophelia, Laertes and Mourners following; King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, 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 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 warrantise: 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 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 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 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.