*

1

As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued 2

Unto that element; but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

Laer.

Alas, then, she is drowned?

Queen. Drowned, drowned.

Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears.

But yet 3

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.

King.

[Exit.

Let's follow, Gertrude.

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

1 i. e. unsusceptible of it.

2 Indued was anciently used in the sense of endowed. Shakspeare may, however, have used it for habited, accustomed.

3 Thus the quarto 1603:

"Therefore I will not drown thee in my tears,
Revenge it is must yield this heart relief,
For woe begets woe, and grief hangs on grief."

4 The folio reads doubts it.

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.1 Argal, she drowned

herself wittingly.

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

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.3

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

1 Warburton says that this is a ridicule on scholastic divisions without distinction, and of distinctions without difference. Shakspeare certainly aims at the legal subtilties used upon occasion of inquests.

2 Even-Christian, for fellow-Christian, was the old mode of expression; even, like, and equal, were synonymous.

3 This speech and the next, as far as arms, is not in the quarto.

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 i!l to say the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again; come.

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

1 Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.1 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 doomsday. 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,2
Methought it was very sweet,

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
O, methought there was nothing meet.

1 "Ay, tell me that, and unyoke." This was a common phrase for giving over or ceasing to do a thing.

2 The original ballad from whence these stanzas are taken, is attributed to lord Vaux, and is printed by Dr. Percy in the first volume of his Reliques of Antient Poetry. The ohs and the ahs were most probably meant to express the interruption of the song by the forcible emission of 47

VOL. VII.

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

once.

[Throws up a skull.

Ham. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing 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'erreaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

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 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

the grave-digger's breath at each stroke of the mattock. The original runs thus:

"I lothe that I did love;

In youth that I thought swete:
As time requires for my behove,
Methinks they are not mete.

"For age with stealing steps

Hath claude me with his crouch;
And lusty youth away he leaps,
As there had bene none such."

1 'The folio reads ore-offices.

breeding, but to play at loggats with them? mine ache to think on't.

1 Clo. A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,

3

For-and a shrouding sheet,

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

[Sings.

[Throws up a skull.

Ham. There's another. Why may 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? 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. 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?

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?
Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calves-skins too.

Ham. They are sheep, and calves, which seek out assurance in that. 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.

[Sings.

1 Loggats, small logs or pieces of wood. Hence loggets was the name of an ancient rustic game, in which a stake was fixed in the ground, at which loggats were thrown.

2 Quiddits are quirks, or subtle questions; and quillets are nice and frivolous distinctions. The quarto of 1603 has quirks instead of quiddits. 3 i. e. head.

4 "Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries," omitted in the quarto.

5 Deeds (of parchment) are called the common assurances of the realm.