SECOND CLOWN Nay, but hear you, Goodman Delver.

FIRST CLOWN 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.

SECOND CLOWN But is this law?

FIRST CLOWN Ay, marry, is’t: coroner’s quest law.

SECOND CLOWN Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWN Why, there thou sayst, and the more pity that great folk should have count’nance 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 gravemakers; they hold up Adam’s profession.

⌈First Clown digs⌉

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? 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—

SECOND CLOWN Go to.

FIRST CLOWN What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

SECOND CLOWN The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

FIRST CLOWN 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.

SECOND CLOWN ‘Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a 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.

Enter Prince Hamlet and Horatio afar off

FIRST CLOWN 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 lasts till doomsday. Go, get thee to Johan. Fetch me a stoup of liquor.

Exit Second Clown

(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.

HAMLET Has this fellow no feeling of his business that a sings at 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.

FIRST CLOWN (sings)

But age with his stealing steps

Hath caught me in his clutch,

And hath shipped 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 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 o’er-offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not? HORATIO It might, my lord.

HAMLET Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord. How dost thou, good 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 not?

HORATIO Ay, my lord.

HAMLET Why, e‘en so, and now my lady Worm’s, chapless, and knocked about the mazard 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 pickaxe 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.

⌈He throws up another skull⌉

HAMLET There’s another. Why might not that be the skull 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? H‘m! 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 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 calf-skins too.

HAMLET They are sheep and calves that seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow. (To the First Clown) 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 ’tis thine. ’Tis for 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 equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken 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. (To the First Clown) 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 last King Hamlet o’ercame 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 was mad and sent into England.

HAMLET Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

FIRST CLOWN Why, because a was mad. A shall recover his wits there; or if a do not, ’tis no great matter there.

HAMLET Why?

FIRST CLOWN ’Twill 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’th’ earth ere he rot?

FIRST CLOWN I’faith, if a be not rotten before a die—as we have many pocky corpses nowadays, that will scarce hold the laying in—a 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 a 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.