SCENE I.
A Church.
Enter two clowns, with spades and mattocks.
1 Clown.
Is she to be buried in christian burial, that willfully
seeks her own salvation?
2 Clown.
I tell thee, she is; therefore make 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 lyes the point; if I drown my self wittingly, it argues an act;
and an act hath three branches. It is an act to do, and to perform;
argal, she drown'd her self wittingly.
2 Clown.
Nay, but hear you, goodman Delver.
1 Clown.
Give me leave; here lyes 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.
2 Clown.
But is this law?
1 Clown.
Ay marry is't, crowner's quest law.
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.
-- 451 --
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 other christians. 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 thy self—
2 Clown.
Go to.
1 Clown.
What is he that builds stronger than either the mason,
the ship-wright, or the carpenter?
2 Clown.
The gallows-maker, for that frame out-lives 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?—
1 Clown.
Ay, 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,
-- 452 --
last 'till dooms-day: go, get thee to Youghan, fetch me a stoup
of liquor.
[Exit 2 Clown.
He digs and sings.
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 nothing meet.
Ham.
Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings
at grave-making?
Hor.
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
Ham.
'Tis e'en so; the hand of little imployment hath the
daintier sense.
Clown sings.
But age with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch:
And hath shipped me into the land,
As if I ne'er had 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 jawbone,
bone, that did the first murther! this 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, good-morrow sweet
lord; how dost thou, good lord? this might be my lord such a
one, that prais'd my lord such a ones horse, when he meant to
beg it; might it not?
Hor.
Ay, my lord.
Ham.
Why e'en so: and now my lady Worm's, chopless, and
knockt about the mazzard with a sexton's spade. Here's fine
revolution, if we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no
-- 453 --
more the breeding, but to play at loggers 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 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 lye 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 ghost is meet.
Ham.
I think it be thine indeed: for thou liest in't.
Clown.
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 'tis thine; 'tis for
-- 454 --
the dead, not for the quick, therefore thou ly'st.
Clown.
'Tis a quick lie, 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?
Clown.
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,
or equivocation will follow 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 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.
-- 455 --
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 whorson dead body. Here's a scull now has lain in
the earth three and twenty years.
Ham.
Whose was it?
Clown.
A whorson 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 flagon
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 born 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
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—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?
Hor.
E'en so.
-- 456 --
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 lome, and why of that lome 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 winter's flaw!
But soft! but soft a while—here comes the King,
George Sewell [1723–5], The works of Shakespear in six [seven] volumes. Collated and Corrected by the former Editions, By Mr. Pope ([Vol. 7] Printed by J. Darby, for A. Bettesworth [and] F. Fayram [etc.], London) [word count] [S11101].
