Act V, Scene I

A churchyard.

Enter two Clowns with spades, &c.

FIRST CLOWN
Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she 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, and 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 gentlemen 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 digg’d. 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 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.

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 he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to
Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of liquor.

[_Exit Second Clown._]

[_Digs and sings._]

In youth when I did love, did love, Methought it was very sweet; To contract, O, the time for, a, 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 shipp’d me into 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 th’ ground, as if ’twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first
murder! This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now
o’er-offices, 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
mazard 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 loggets with ’em? Mine ache to think on’t.

FIRST CLOWN
[_Sings._]
A pickaxe 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 quiddits 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 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, sir?

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 ’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; ’t will 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 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’ th’ year, I came to’t that day that our last King
Hamlet o’ercame 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’ th’earth ere he rot?

FIRST CLOWN
Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,—as we have many pocky corses
nowadays 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 tann’d 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 hath 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 pour’d 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 kiss’d 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 chop-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’ th’earth?

HORATIO
E’en so.

HAMLET
And smelt so? Pah!

[_Throws 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 t’expel the winter’s flaw.
But soft! but soft! aside! 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 that 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 enlarg’d
As we have warranties. Her death was doubtful;
And but that great command o’ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodg’d
Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.
Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites,
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 sage requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.

LAERTES
Lay her i’ th’earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist’ring angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.

HAMLET
What, the fair Ophelia?

QUEEN
[_Scattering flowers._] Sweets to the sweet. Farewell.
I hop’d 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
Depriv’d thee of. Hold off the earth a while,
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 wand’ring stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
[_Leaps into the grave._]

LAERTES
[_Grappling with him._] The devil take thy soul!

HAMLET
Thou pray’st not well.
I prithee take thy fingers from my throat;
For though I am not splenative and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear. Away thy hand!

KING
Pluck them asunder.

QUEEN
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.

QUEEN
O my son, what theme?

HAMLET
I lov’d 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.

QUEEN
For love of God forbear him!

HAMLET
’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do:
Woul’t weep? woul’t fight? woul’t fast? woul’t tear thyself?
Woul’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.

QUEEN
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 disclos’d,
His silence will sit drooping.

HAMLET
Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I lov’d 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._]