The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 137

by William Shakespeare


  [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
r />   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

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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

 

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