Complete Plays, The

by William Shakespeare

  Horatio

  Ay, my lord.

  Hamlet

  Why, e’en so: and now my Lady Worm’s; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton’s spade: here’s fine revolution, an we had the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with ’em? mine ache to think on’t.

  First Clown

  [Sings]

  A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,

  For and a shrouding sheet:

  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 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 lie in this box; and must the 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 calf-skins too.

  Hamlet

  They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose grave’s this, sirrah?

  First Clown

  Mine, sir.

  Sings

  O, a pit of clay for to be made

  For such a guest is meet.

  Hamlet

  I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in’t.

  First Clown

  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.

  Hamlet

  ‘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 Clown

  ’Tis a quick lie, sir; ’twill away gain, from me to you.

  Hamlet

  What man dost thou dig it for?

  First Clown

  For no man, sir.

  Hamlet

  What woman, then?

  First Clown

  For none, neither.

  Hamlet

  Who is to be buried in’t?

  First Clown

  One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.

  Hamlet

  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 Clown

  Of all the days i’ the year, I came to’t that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

  Hamlet

  How long is that since?

  First Clown

  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.

  Hamlet

  Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

  First Clown

  Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, it’s no great matter there.

  Hamlet

  Why?

  First Clown

  ’Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

  Hamlet

  How came he mad?

  First Clown

  Very strangely, they say.

  Hamlet

  How strangely?

  First Clown

  Faith, e’en with losing his wits.

  Hamlet

  Upon what ground?

  First Clown

  Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

  Hamlet

  How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?

  First Clown

  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.

  Hamlet

  Why he more than another?

  First Clown

  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 has lain in the earth three and twenty years.

  Hamlet

  Whose was it?

  First Clown

  A whoreson mad fellow’s it was: whose do you think it was?

  Hamlet

  Nay, I know not.

  First Clown

  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?

  First Clown

  E’en that.

  Hamlet

  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 thousand 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 merriment, 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.

  Horatio

  What’s that, my lord?

  Hamlet

  Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ the 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! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he 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 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?

  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 to expel the winter flaw!

  But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.

  Enter Priest, & c. in procession; the Corpse of Ophelia, Laertes and Mourners following; King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, their trains, & c

  The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?

  And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken

  The corse they follow did with desperate hand

  Fordo its own life: ’twas of some estate.

  Couch we awhile, and mark.

  Retiring with Horatio

  Laertes

  What ceremony else?

  Hamlet

  That is Laertes,

  A very noble youth: mark.

  Laertes

  What ceremony else?

  First Priest

  Her obsequies have been as far enlarged

  As we have warrantise: her death was doubtful;

  And, but th
at great command o’ersways the order,

  She should in ground unsanctified have lodged

  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,

  Her maiden strewments and the bringing home

  Of bell and burial.

  Laertes

  Must there no more be done?

  First Priest

  No more be done:

  We should profane the service of the dead

  To sing a requiem and such rest to her

  As to peace-parted souls.

  Laertes

  Lay her i’ the earth:

  And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

  May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,

  A ministering angel shall my sister be,

  When thou liest howling.

  Hamlet

  What, the fair Ophelia!

  Queen Gertrude

  Sweets to the sweet: farewell!

  Scattering flowers

  I hoped 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,

  Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense

  Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,

  Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:

  Leaps into the grave

  Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,

  Till of this flat a mountain you have made,

  To o’ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head

  Of blue Olympus.

  Hamlet

  [Advancing] What is he whose grief

  Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow

  Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand

  Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,

  Hamlet the Dane.

  Leaps into the grave

  Laertes

  The devil take thy soul!

  Grappling with him

  Hamlet

  Thou pray’st not well.

  I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;

  For, though I am not splenitive and rash,

  Yet have I something in me dangerous,

  Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.

  King Claudius

  Pluck them asunder.

  Queen Gertrude

  Hamlet, Hamlet!

  All

  Gentlemen,—

  Horatio

  Good my lord, be quiet.

  The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave

  Hamlet

  Why I will fight with him upon this theme

  Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

  Queen Gertrude

  O my son, what theme?

  Hamlet

  I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers

  Could not, with all their quantity of love,

  Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

  King Claudius

  O, he is mad, Laertes.

  Queen Gertrude

  For love of God, forbear him.

  Hamlet

  ’swounds, show me what thou’lt do:

  Woo’t weep? woo’t fight? woo’t fast? woo’t tear thyself?

  Woo’t drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?

  I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine?

  To outface me with leaping in her grave?

  Be buried quick with her, and so will I:

  And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw

  Millions of acres on us, till our ground,

  Singeing his pate against the burning zone,

  Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou’lt mouth,

  I’ll rant as well as thou.

  Queen Gertrude

  This is mere madness:

  And thus awhile the fit will work on him;

  Anon, as patient as the female dove,

  When that her golden couplets are disclosed,

  His silence will sit drooping.

  Hamlet

  Hear you, sir;

  What is the reason that you use me thus?

  I loved you ever: but it is no matter;

  Let Hercules himself do what he may,

  The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

  Exit

  King Claudius

  I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.

  Exit Horatio

  To Laertes

  Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech;

  We’ll put the matter to the present push.

  Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.

  This grave shall have a living monument:

  An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;

  Till then, in patience our proceeding be.

  Exeunt

  SCENE II. A HALL IN THE CASTLE.

  Enter Hamlet and Horatio

  Hamlet

  So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other;

  You do remember all the circumstance?

  Horatio

  Remember it, my lord?

  Hamlet

  Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,

  That would not let me sleep: methought I lay

  Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,

  And praised be rashness for it, let us know,

  Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,

  When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us

  There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

  Rough-hew them how we will,—

  Horatio

  That is most certain.

  Hamlet

  Up from my cabin,

  My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark

  Groped I to find out them; had my desire.

  Finger’d their packet, and in fine withdrew

  To mine own room again; making so bold,

  My fears forgetting manners, to unseal

  Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,—

  O royal knavery!— an exact command,

  Larded with many several sorts of reasons

  Importing Denmark’s health and England’s too,

  With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,

  That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,

  No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,

  My head should be struck off.

  Horatio

  Is’t possible?

  Hamlet

  Here’s the commission: read it at more leisure.

  But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

  Horatio

  I beseech you.

  Hamlet

  Being thus be-netted round with villanies,—

  Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,

  They had begun the play — I sat me down,

  Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:

  I once did hold it, as our statists do,

  A baseness to write fair and labour’d much

  How to forget that learning, but, sir, now

  It did me yeoman’s service: wilt thou know

  The effect of what I wrote?

  Horatio

  Ay, good my lord.

  Hamlet

  An earnest conjuration from the king,

  As England was his faithful tributary,

  As love between them like the palm might flourish,

  As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear

  And stand a comma ’tween their amities,

  And many such-like ‘As’es of great charge,

  That, on the view and knowing of these contents,

  Without debatement further, more or less,

  He should the bearers put to sudden death,

  Not shriving-time allow’d.

  Horatio

  How was this seal’d?
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  Hamlet

  Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.

  I had my father’s signet in my purse,

  Which was the model of that Danish seal;

  Folded the writ up in form of the other,

  Subscribed it, gave’t the impression, placed it safely,

  The changeling never known. Now, the next day

  Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent

  Thou know’st already.

  Horatio

  So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.

  Hamlet

  Why, man, they did make love to this employment;

  They are not near my conscience; their defeat

  Does by their own insinuation grow:

  ’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes

  Between the pass and fell incensed points

  Of mighty opposites.

  Horatio

  Why, what a king is this!

  Hamlet

  Does it not, think’st thee, stand me now upon —

  He that hath kill’d my king and whored my mother,

  Popp’d in between the election and my hopes,

  Thrown out his angle for my proper life,

  And with such cozenage — is’t not perfect conscience,

  To quit him with this arm? and is’t not to be damn’d,

  To let this canker of our nature come

  In further evil?

  Horatio

  It must be shortly known to him from England

  What is the issue of the business there.

  Hamlet

  It will be short: the interim is mine;

  And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘One.’

  But I am very sorry, good Horatio,

  That to Laertes I forgot myself;

  For, by the image of my cause, I see

  The portraiture of his: I’ll court his favours.

  But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me

  Into a towering passion.

  Horatio

  Peace! who comes here?

  Enter Osric

  Osric

  Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

  Hamlet

  I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?

  Horatio

  No, my good lord.

  Hamlet

  Thy state is the more gracious; for ’tis a vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king’s mess: ’tis a chough; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.

  Osric

  Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from his majesty.

  Hamlet

  I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; ’tis for the head.

  Osric

  I thank your lordship, it is very hot.

  Hamlet

  No, believe me, ’tis very cold; the wind is northerly.

  Osric

  It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.