[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 – a – was nothing – a – meet.
While he is singing, enter HAMLET and HORATIO.
HAMLET Has this fellow no feeling of his business a
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sings in 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.
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GRAVEDIGGER [Sings.]
But age with his stealing steps
Hath claw’d me in his clutch,
And hath shipp’d me intil the land,
As if I had never been such.
[He throws up a skull.]
HAMLET That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing
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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?
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HORATIO It might, my lord.
HAMLET Or of a courtier, which could say, ‘Good
morrow, sweet lord. How dost thou, sweet lord?’ This
might be my Lord Such-a-one, that praised my Lord
Such-a-one’s horse when a meant to beg it, might it
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not?
HORATIO Ay, my lord.
HAMLET Why, e’en so, and now my Lady Worm’s,
chopless, and knocked about the mazard with a
sexton’s spade. Here’s fine revolution and we had the
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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.
GRAVEDIGGER [Sings.]
A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding-sheet,
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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
quillities, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why
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does he suffer this mad 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
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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
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conveyances of his lands will scarcely lie in this box,
and must th’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 calveskins too.
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HAMLET They are sheep and calves which seek out
assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow. – Whose
grave’s this, sirrah?
GRAVEDIGGER Mine, sir.
[Sings.] O a pit of clay for to be made –
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HAMLET I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in’t.
GRAVEDIGGER 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 ’tis thine.
’Tis for the dead, not for the quick: therefore thou
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liest.
GRAVEDIGGER ’Tis a quick lie, sir, ’twill away again
from me to you.
HAMLET What man dost thou dig it for?
GRAVEDIGGER For no man, sir.
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HAMLET What woman then?
GRAVEDIGGER For none neither.
HAMLET Who is to be buried in’t?
GRAVEDIGGER One that was a woman, sir; but rest her
soul, she’s dead.
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HAMLET How absolute the knave is. We must speak by
the card or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord,
Horatio, this three years I have took 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
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long hast thou been grave-maker?
GRAVEDIGGER 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?
GRAVEDIGGER Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell
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that. It was that very day that young Hamlet was born
– he that is mad and sent into England.
HAMLET Ay, marry. Why was he sent into England?
GRAVEDIGGER Why, because a was mad. A shall
recover his wits there. Or if a do not, ’tis no great
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matter there.
HAMLET Why?
GRAVEDIGGER ’Twill not be seen in him there. There
the men are as mad as he.
HAMLET How came he mad?
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GRAVEDIGGER Very strangely, they say.
HAMLET How ‘strangely’?
GRAVEDIGGER Faith, e’en with losing his wits.
HAMLET Upon what ground?
GRAVEDIGGER Why, here in Denmark. I have been
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sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.
HAMLET How long will a man lie i’th’ earth ere he rot?
GRAVEDIGGER Faith, if a be not rotten before a die – as
we have many pocky corses nowadays that will
scarce hold the laying in – a will last you some eight
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year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.
HAMLET Why he more than another?
GRAVEDIGGER Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his
trade that a will keep out water a great while, and your
water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
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Here’s a skull now hath lien you i’th’ earth three and
twenty years.
HAMLET Whose was it?
GRAVEDIGGER A whoreson mad fellow’s it was. Whose
do you think it was?
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HAMLET Nay, I know not.
GRAVEDIGGER 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? [Takes the skull.]
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GRAVEDIGGER E’en that.
HAMLET Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a
fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath
bore me on his back a thousand times, and now – how
abhorred in my imagination it is. My gorge rises at it.
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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 chop-fallen? Now get you
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to my lady’s chamber and tell her, let her paint an
laugh at that. – Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.
HORATIO What’s that, my lord?
HAMLET Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this
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fashion i’th’ 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!
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Why, may not imagination trace the noble dust of
Alexander till a 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
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with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it.
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?
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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 awhile. Here comes the King,
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The Queen, the courtiers.
Enter bearers with a coffin, a Priest, KING, QUEEN, LAERTES, lords attendant.
Who is this they follow?
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desp’rate hand
Fordo it own life. ’Twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile and mark.
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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 warranty. Her death was doubtful;
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And but that great command o’ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified been lodg’d
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,
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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
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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!
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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
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Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Depriv’d thee of. – Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
[Leaps in the grave.]
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made
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T’o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.
HAMLET 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,
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Hamlet the Dane.
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,
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Which let thy wiseness fear. Hold off thy hand.
KING Pluck them asunder.
QUEEN Hamlet! Hamlet!
ALL Gentlemen!
HORATIO Good my lord, be quiet.
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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
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 137