Act V, Scene 1
[Line 35]
GRAVEDIGGER What, are 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—
OTHER Go to!
GRAVEDIGGER What is he that builds
Stronger than either the mason,
The shipwright, or the carpenter?
OTHER
The gallows-maker; for that frame
Outlives a thousand tenants.
GRAVEDIGGER
I like thy wit well, i’ 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 it again, come!
OTHER
“Who build stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?”
GRAVEDIGGER Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
OTHER Marry, now I can tell.
GRAVEDIGGER To it!
OTHER Mass, I cannot tell.
[Enter HORATIO and HAMLET.]
GRAVEDIGGER
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 he makes lasts till Doomsday.
Go, get thee in, and fetch me a stoup of liquor.
[The OTHER man exits. The GRAVEDIGGER digs and sings.]
…Gravedigger’s song… Lines 63-68
HAMLET
Has this fellow no feeling of his business?
He sings in grave-making.
HORATIO
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
HAMLET
‘Tis even so. The hand of little enjoyment
Hath the daintier sense.
GRAVEDIGGER
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.
[GRAVEDIGGER digs up a skull.]
HAMLET
That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once.
How the knave jowls it to the ground
As if ‘twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder!
This might be the pate of a politician which
This ass now overreaches, 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, sweet lord”,
This might be my Lord Such-A-One
That praised my Lord Such-A-One’s horse
When he went to beg it, might it not?
HORATIO
Ay, my lord.
[Line 90]