The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?
HORAT. Not a jot more, my lord.
HAMLE. Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
HORAT. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
HAMLE. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow.
Whose grave’s this, sirrah?
FIRST CLOW. Mine, sir. [ Sings.]
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.
HAMLE. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in’t.
FIRST CLOW. 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.
HAMLE. ’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 CLOW. ’Tis a quick lie, sir; ’twill away gain, from me to you.
HAMLE. What man dost thou dig it for?
FIRST CLOW. For no man, sir.
HAMLE. What woman, then?
FIRST CLOW. For none, neither.
HAMLE. Who is to be buried in’t?
FIRST CLOW. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s
dead.
HAMLE. 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 CLOW. Of all the days i’ the year, I came to’t that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
HAMLE. How long is that since?
FIRST CLOW. 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.
HAMLE. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
ICLOW. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, it’s no great matter there.
HAMLE. Why?
FIRST CLOW. ’Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.
HAMLE. How came he mad?
FIRST CLOW. Very strangely, they say.
HAMLE. How strangely?
FIRST CLOW. Faith, e’en with losing his wits.
HAMLE. Upon what ground?
FIRST CLOW. Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man
and boy, thirty years.
HAMLE. How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?
FIRST CLOW. 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.
HAMLE. Why he more than another?
FIRST CLOW. 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 hath lain in the earth three and twenty years.
HAMLE. Whose was it?
FIRST CLOW. A whoreson mad fellow’s it was: whose do you think it was?
HAMLE. Nay, I know not.
FIRST CLOW. 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.
HAMLE. This?
FIRST CLOW. E’en that.
HAMLE. 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 thou-sand 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 merri-ment, 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.
HORAT. What’s that, my lord?
HAMLE. Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ the earth?
HORAT. E’en so.
HAMLE. And smelt so? pah!
[Puts down the skull.]
HORAT. E’en so, my lord.
HAMLE. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bunghole?
HORAT. ’Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
HAMLE. 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?