Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Act 5 - Scene 1
Elsinore. A churchyard.
First Clown : Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she wilfully seeks her
own salvation?
Second Clown : I tell thee she is; therefore make her grave straight.
[p]The crowner
hath sate on her, and finds it Christian burial.
First Clown : How can that be, unless she drown'd herself in her own
[p]defence?
Second Clown : Why, 'tis found so.
First Clown : It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies
[p]the
point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an
[p]act
hath three branches-it is to act, to do, and to perform;
[p]argal, she
drown'd herself wittingly.
Second Clown : Nay, but hear you, Goodman Delver!
First Clown : Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. Here stands the
[p]man;
good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is,
[p]will he
nill he, he goes- mark you that. But if the water come to
[p]him and
drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not
[p]guilty of
his own death shortens not his own life.
Second Clown : But is this law?
First Clown : Ay, marry, is't- crowner's quest law.
Second Clown : Will you ha' the truth an't? If this had not been a
[p]gentlewoman,
she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.
First Clown : Why, there thou say'st! And the more pity that great folk
[p]should
have count'nance in this world to drown or hang themselves
[p]more
than their even-Christian. Come, my spade! There is no
[p]ancient
gentlemen but gard'ners, ditchers, and grave-makers. They
[p]hold up
Adam's profession.
Second Clown : Was he a gentleman?
First Clown : 'A was the first that ever bore arms.
Second Clown : Why, he had none.
First Clown : What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture?
[p]The
Scripture says Adam digg'd. Could he dig without arms? I'll
[p]put
another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the
[p]purpose,
confess thyself-
Second Clown : Go to!
First Clown : What is he that builds stronger than either the mason,
the
[p]shipwright, or the carpenter?
Second Clown : The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand
[p]tenants.
First Clown : I like thy wit well, in good faith. The gallows does well.
[p]But how
does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now,
[p]thou dost ill
to say the gallows is built stronger than the
[p]church. Argal, the
gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come!
Second Clown : Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a
[p]carpenter?
First Clown : Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
Second Clown : Marry, now I can tell!
First Clown : To't.
Second Clown : Mass, I cannot tell.
First Clown : Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will
[p]not mend
his pace with beating; and when you are ask'd this
[p]question next,
say 'a grave-maker.' The houses he makes lasts
[p]till doomsday. Go,
get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of
[p]liquor.
First Clown : In youth when I did love, did love,
[p] Methought it was very
sweet;
[p] To contract- O- the time for- a- my behove,
[p] O,
methought there- a- was nothing- a- meet.
Hamlet : Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings
at
[p]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
[p]sense.
First Clown : [sings]
[p] But age with his stealing steps
[p] Hath clawed me
in his clutch,
[p] And hath shipped me intil the land,
[p] As
if I had never been such.
Hamlet : That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the
[p]knave
jowls it to the ground,as if 'twere Cain's jawbone, that
[p]did the
first murther! This might be the pate of a Politician,
[p]which this
ass now o'erreaches; one that would circumvent God,
[p]might it not?
Horatio : It might, my lord.
Hamlet : Or of a courtier, which could say 'Good morrow, sweet lord!
[p]How
dost thou, good lord?' This might be my Lord Such-a-one,
that
[p]prais'd my Lord Such-a-one's horse when he meant to beg it-
might
[p]it not?
Horatio : Ay, my lord.
Hamlet : Why, e'en so! and now my Lady Worm's, chapless, and knock'd
[p]about
the mazzard with a sexton's spade. Here's fine revolution,
[p]and we
had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the
[p]breeding
but to play at loggets with 'em? Mine ache to think
[p]on't.
First Clown : [Sings]
[p] A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,
[p] For and a
shrouding sheet;
[p] O, a Pit of clay for to be made
[p] For
such a guest is meet.
[p] Throws up
[another skull].
Hamlet : There's another. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?
[p]Where
be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures,
[p]and his
tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock
[p]him about
the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him
[p]of his action
of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's time a
[p]great buyer of
land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his
[p]fines, his double
vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of
[p]his fines, and the
recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine
[p]pate full of fine
dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of
[p]his purchases, and
double ones too, than the length and breadth
[p]of a pair of
indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will
[p]scarcely lie in
this box; and must th' inheritor himself have no
[p]more, ha?
Horatio : Not a jot more, my lord.
Hamlet : Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
Horatio : Ay, my lord, And of calveskins too.
Hamlet : They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I
[p]will
speak to this fellow. Whose grave's this, sirrah?
First Clown : Mine, sir.
[p][Sings] O, a pit of clay for to be made
[p] 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 'tis not yours.
[p]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 it is thine. 'Tis for
[p]the
dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.
First Clown : 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again 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
[p]equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, this three
years
[p]I have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked that the
toe
[p]of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he
galls
[p]his kibe.- How long hast thou been a grave-maker?
First Clown : Of all the days i' th' year, I came to't that day that our
[p]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
[p]very day
that young Hamlet was born- he that is mad, and sent
[p]into England.
Hamlet : Ay, marry, why was be sent into England?
First Clown : Why, because 'a was mad. 'A shall recover his wits there;
[p]or, if 'a
do not, 'tis no great matter there.
Hamlet : Why?
First Clown : 'Twill not he seen in him there. There the men are as mad as
[p]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
[p]thirty
years.
Hamlet : How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he rot?
First Clown : Faith, if 'a be not rotten before 'a die (as we have many
[p]pocky
corses now-a-days that will scarce hold the laying in, I
[p]will last
you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last
[p]you nine
year.
Hamlet : Why he more than another?
First Clown : Why, sir, his hide is so tann'd with his trade that 'a will
[p]keep
out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of
[p]your
whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now. This skull hath lien
[p]you i'
th' 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 pour'd a flagon of
[p]Rhenish
on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's
[p]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,
[p]Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
He
[p]hath borne me on his back a thousand times. And now how
abhorred
[p]in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung
those
[p]lips that I have kiss'd I know not how oft. Where be your
gibes
[p]now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment
that
[p]were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock
your
[p]own grinning? Quite chap- fall'n? Now get you to my
lady's
[p]chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to
this
[p]favour she must come. Make her laugh at that. Prithee,
Horatio,
[p]tell me one thing.
Horatio : What's that, my lord?
Hamlet : Dost thou think Alexander look'd o' this fashion i' th' earth?
Horatio : E'en so.
Hamlet : And smelt so? Pah!
Horatio : E'en so, my lord.
Hamlet : To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not
[p]imagination
trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it
[p]stopping a
bunghole?
Horatio : 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
Hamlet : No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
modesty
[p]enough, and likelihood to lead it; as thus: Alexander
died,
[p]Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust
is
[p]earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam (whereto
he
[p]was converted) might they not stop a beer barrel?
[p]Imperious
Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
[p]Might stop a hole to keep the wind
away.
[p]O, that that earth which kept the world in awe
[p]Should
patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw!
[p]But soft! but soft! aside!
Here comes the King-
[p]Enter [priests with] a coffin [in funeral
procession], King,
[p][Queen, Laertes, with Lords attendant.]
[p]The
Queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?
[p]And with such maimed
rites? This doth betoken
[p]The corse they follow did with desp'rate
hand
[p]Fordo it own life. 'Twas of some estate.
[p]Couch we awhile,
and mark.
Laertes : What ceremony else?
Hamlet : That is Laertes,
[p]A very noble youth. Mark.
Laertes : What ceremony else?
Priest : Her obsequies have been as far enlarg'd
[p]As we have warranty. Her
death was doubtful;
[p]And, but that great command o'ersways the
order,
[p]She should in ground unsanctified have lodg'd
[p]Till the
last trumpet. For charitable prayers,
[p]Shards, flints, and pebbles
should be thrown on her.
[p]Yet here she is allow'd her virgin
rites,
[p]Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
[p]Of bell and
burial.
Laertes : Must there no more be done?
Priest : No more be done.
[p]We should profane the service of the dead
[p]To
sing a requiem and such rest to her
[p]As to peace-parted souls.
Laertes : Lay her i' th' earth;
[p]And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
[p]May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
[p]A minist'ring
angel shall my sister be
[p]When thou liest howling.
Hamlet : What, the fair Ophelia?
Gertrude : Sweets to the sweet! Farewell.
[p][Scatters flowers.]
[p]I hop'd thou
shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
[p]I thought thy bride-bed to
have deck'd, sweet maid,
[p]And not have strew'd thy grave.
Laertes : O, treble woe
[p]Fall ten times treble on that cursed head
[p]Whose
wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
[p]Depriv'd thee of! Hold off the
earth awhile,
[p]Till I have caught her once more in mine
arms.
[p][Leaps in the grave.]
[p]Now pile your dust upon the quick
and dead
[p]Till of this flat a mountain you have made
[p]T' o'ertop
old Pelion or the skyish head
[p]Of blue Olympus.
Hamlet : [comes forward] What is he whose grief
[p]Bears such an emphasis?
whose phrase of sorrow
[p]Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them
stand
[p]Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
[p]Hamlet the Dane.
[Leaps in after Laertes.
Laertes : The devil take thy soul!
Hamlet : Thou pray'st not well.
[p]I prithee take thy fingers from my
throat;
[p]For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
[p]Yet have I in
me something dangerous,
[p]Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy
hand!
Claudius : Pluck them asunder.
Gertrude : Hamlet, Hamlet!
All : Gentlemen!
Horatio : Good my lord, be quiet.
Hamlet : Why, I will fight with him upon this theme
[p]Until my eyelids will no
longer wag.
Gertrude : O my son, what theme?
Hamlet : I lov'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
[p]Could not (with all their
quantity of love)
[p]Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
Claudius : O, he is mad, Laertes.
Gertrude : For love of God, forbear him!
Hamlet : 'Swounds, show me what thou't do.
[p]Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't
fast? woo't tear thyself?
[p]Woo't drink up esill? eat a
crocodile?
[p]I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
[p]To outface
me with leaping in her grave?
[p]Be buried quick with her, and so will
I.
[p]And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
[p]Millions of
acres on us, till our ground,
[p]Singeing his pate against the burning
zone,
[p]Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
[p]I'll rant as
well as thou.
Gertrude : This is mere madness;
[p]And thus a while the fit will work on
him.
[p]Anon, as patient as the female dove
[p]When that her golden
couplets are disclos'd,
[p]His silence will sit drooping.
Hamlet : Hear you, sir!
[p]What is the reason that you use me thus?
[p]I lov'd
you ever. But it is no matter.
[p]Let Hercules himself do what he
may,
[p]The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
Claudius : I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.
[p][Exit Horatio.]
[p][To
Laertes] Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech.
[p]We'll
put the matter to the present push.-
[p]Good Gertrude, set some watch
over your son.-
[p]This grave shall have a living monument.
[p]An hour
of quiet shortly shall we see;
[p]Till then in patience our proceeding
be.
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Next: Act 5 - Scene 2
