SCENE I.
A CHURCH.
Enter two Clowns, with spades and mattocks.
1 Clown.
Is she to be buried in christian burial, that wilfully
seeks her own salvation?
2 Clown.
I tell thee, she is, therefore 3 notemake her
Grave straight. The crowner hath sate on her, and finds
it christian burial.
1 Clown.
How can that be, unless she drowned her
self in her own defence?
2 Clown.
Why, 'tis found so.
1 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 4 notean act hath three branches; it
is to act, to do, and to perform. Argal, she drown'd
herself wittingly.
2 Clown.
Nay, but hear you, goodman Delver.
1 Clown.
Give me leave. Clown, 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.
-- 279 --
Argal, he, that is not guilty of his own death, shortens
not his own life.
2 Clown.
But is this law?
1 Clown.
Ay, marry is't, crowner's quest-law.6Q0273
2 Clown.
Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had
not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried
out of christian burial.
1 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 5 notetheir
even christian. Come. My spade. There is no ancient
gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers;
they hold up Adam's profession.
2 Clown.
Was he a gentleman?
1 Clown.
He was the first that ever bore arms.
“2 Clown.
Why, he had none.
“1 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—
2 Clown.
Go to.
1 Clown.
What is he that builds stronger than either
the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
2 Clown.
The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives
a thousand tenants.
1 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.
2 Clown.
Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright,
or a carpenter?—
-- 280 --
1 Clown.
6 noteAy, tell me that, and unyoke.
2 Clown.
Marry, now I can tell.
1 Clown.
To't.
2 Clown.
Mass, I cannot tell.
Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance.
1 Clown.
Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for
your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating;
and, when you are ask'd this question next, say, a
grave-maker. The houses, he makes, last 'till doomsday.
Go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a stoup
of liquor.
[Exit 2 Clown.
He digs, and sings.
7 note
In youth when I did love, did love,
Methought, it was very sweet;
To contract, oh, the time for, a, my behove,
Oh, methought, there was 8 note
nothing so meet.
Ham.
Has this fellow no feeling of his business,
that he sings at Grave-making?
Hor.
Custom hath made it to him a property of
easiness.
Ham.
'Tis e'en so. The hand of little imployment
hath the daintier sense.
-- 281 --
Clown sings.
9 note
But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch:
And hath shipped me into the land,
As if I had never been such.
Ham.
That scull had a tongue in it, and could sing
once; how the knave jowles it to the ground, as if it
were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! This
might be the pate of 1 notea politician, 2 note
which this ass
-- 282 --
o'er-offices; one that would circumvent God, might
it not?
Hor.
It might, my Lord.
Ham.
Or of a courtier, which could say, “good-morrow,
sweet Lord; how dost thou, good Lord?”
This might be my Lord such-a-one's, that prais'd my
Lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it;
might it not?
Hor.
Ay, my Lord.
Ham.
Why, e'en so; 3 noteand now my lady Worm's;
chapless, and knockt about the mazzard with a sexton's
spade. Here's a fine revolution, if we had the
trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the
breeding, but to 4 noteplay at loggats with 'em? mine ake
to think on't.
Clown sings.
A pick-axe and a spade, a spade,
For,—and a shrowding sheet!
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.
Ham.
There's another. Why may not that be the scull
of a lawyer? where be his quiddits now? his quillets?
his cases? his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he
-- 283 --
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?
Hor.
Not a jot more, my Lord.
Ham.
Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?
Hor.
Ay, my Lord, and of calve-skins too.
Ham.
They are sheep and calves that seek out assurance
in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose
Grave's this, Sirrah?
Clown.
Mine, Sir—
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a Guest is meet.
Ham.
I think, it be thine, indeed, for thou liest
in't.
Clown.
You lye 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 lye in't, to be in't, and say, 'tis
thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick, therefore
thou ly'st.
Clown.
'Tis a quick lye, Sir, 'twill away again
from me to you.
Ham.
What man dost thou dig it for?
Clown.
For no man, Sir.
Ham.
What woman then?
Clown.
For none neither.
Ham.
Who is to be buried in't?
-- 284 --
Clown.
One, that was a woman, Sir; but, rest her
soul, she's dead.
Ham.
How absolute the knave is? We must speak
5 noteby the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the
Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of
it, 6 notethe age is grown so picked, that the toe of the
peasant comes so near the heel of our courtier, he galls
his kibe. How long hast thou been a grave-maker?
Clown.
Of all the days i' th' year, I came to 't that
day that our last King Hamlet o'ercame Fortinbras.
Ham.
How long is that since?
Clown.
Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell
that. It was that very day that young Hamlet was
born, he that was mad, and sent into England.
Ham.
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
Clown.
Why, because he was mad; he shall recover
his wits there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter
there.
Ham.
Why?
Clown.
'Twill not be seen in him; there the men
are as mad as he.
Ham.
How came he mad?
Clown.
Very strangely, they say.
Ham.
How strangely?
Clown.
'Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
Ham.
Upon what ground?
Clown.
Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton
here, man and boy, thirty years.
-- 285 --
Ham.
How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he
rot?
Clown.
I'faith, if he be not rotten before he die, as
we have many pocky coarses 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 years.
Ham.
Why he, more than another?
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 scull now has lain in the earth three
and twenty years.
Ham.
Whose was it?
Clown.
A whoreson mad fellow's it was. Whose do
you think it was?
Ham.
Nay, I know not.
Clown.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! he
pour'd a flaggon of Rhenish on my head once. This
same scull, Sir, was Yorick's scull, the King's jester.
Ham.
This?
Clown.
E'en that.
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 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 in 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.—Pr'ythee, Horatio, tell me one
thing.
Hor.
What's that, my Lord?
Ham.
Dost thou think, Alexander look'd o' this fashion
i' th' earth?
-- 286 --
Hor.
E'en so.
Ham.
And smelt so, puh?
[Smelling to the Scull.
Hor.
E'en so, my Lord.
Ham.
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?
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 loam; 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.
Oh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall, t' expel the 7 notewinter's flaw!
But soft! but soft, a while—here comes the King,
Samuel Johnson [1765], The plays of William Shakespeare, in eight volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Sam. Johnson (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and] C. Corbet [etc.], London) [word count] [S11001].
