It is our trick; nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,
The woman will be out.'-Adieu, my lord!
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly drowns it.

[Exit.

Let's follow, Gertrude :

King.
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I, this will give it start again;
Therefore, let's follow.

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I-A church-yard.

Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c.

1 Clo. Is she to be buried in christian burial, that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

2 Clo. I tell thee, she is; therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath set on her, and finds it christian burial.

1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

2 Clo. Why, 'tis found so.

1 Clo. It must be se offendendo. It cannot be else. For here lies the point: If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform: Argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

2 Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.

1 i. e. tears will flow.

2 i. e. immediately.

3 for se defendendo.

• Ridicule on scholastic divisions without distinction, or of distinctions without difference.

F

1 Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good: If the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes; mark you that: but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself: Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life.

2 Clo. But is this law?

1 Clo. Ay, marry is't; crowner's-quest law.

2 Clo. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out of christian burial.

1 Clo. Why, there thou say'st:' And the more pity; that great folks shall have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession.

2 Clo. Was he a gentleman?

1 Clo. He was the first that ever bore arms. 2 Clo. Why, he had none.

1 Clo. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the scripture? The scripture says, Adam digged; Could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself

2 Clo. Go to.

1 Clo. What is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

2 Clo. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

1 Clo. I like thy wit well, in good faith; the gallows does well: But how does it well? it does well to those that do ill: now thou dost ill, to say, the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again;

come.

1 speak'st to the purpose.

2 their fellow-Christians.

2 Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

I Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.'

2 Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clo. To't.

2 Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and Horatio, at a distance.

1 Clo. Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating: and, when you are asked this question next, say, a grave-maker; the houses, that he makes, last till dooms-day. Go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a stoup of liquor. [Exit 2 Clown.

1 Clown digs, and sings.

In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought, it was very sweet.

Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave-making.

Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property of

easiness.

Ham. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

1 Clo. But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch,

And hath shipped me into the land,
As if I had never been such.

[Throws up a scull.

Ham. That scull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: How the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches.

Hor. It might, my lord.

Ham. Or of a courtier; which could say, Goodmorrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord? This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord

be released from further questioning.

such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

Hor. Ay, my lord.

Ham. 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 them? mine ache to think on't.

2

1 Clo. 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.

[Sings.

[Throws up a scull.

Ham. There's another: Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits 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? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more? ha?

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham. I will speak to this fellow :-Whose grave's this, sirrah?

1 Clo. Mine, sir.—

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?

1 Clo. For no man, sir.

Ham. What woman, then?

[Sings.

The scull that was my lord such-a-one's, is now my lady

Worm's.

2

loggats, skittles.

3 quiddits, subtleties.

4 quillets, nice and frivolous distinctions.

1 Clo. For none neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in it?

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

2

Ham. 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 note of it; the age is grown so picked,3 that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

1 Clo. Of all the days i' th' year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. Ham. How long's that since?

1 Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: It was that very day that young Hamlet was born: he that is mad, and sent into England?

Ham. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England? 1 Clo. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, 'tis no great matter there.

Ham. Why?

1 Clo. "Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

Ham. How came he mad?

1 Clo. Very strangely, they say.

Ham. How strangely?

1 Clo. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

Ham. Upon what ground?

1 Clo. Why, here in Denmark; I have been sexton here, man, and boy, thirty years.

Ham. How long will a man lie i̇' th' earth ere he rot?

1 Clo. 'Faith, if he be not rotten before he die, (as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will

1

absolute, peremptory.

We must speak with the same precision and accuracy as is observed in marking the true distances of coasts, &c. in a seachart, which, in Shakspeare's time, was called a card.

3 so spruce,