Act V, Scene 1
[Enter GRAVEDIGGER and an OTHER.]
GRAVEDIGGER
Is she to be buried in Christian burial,
When she willfully seeks her own salvation?
OTHER
I tell thee she is.
Therefore make her grave straight.
The crowner hath sat on her and finds it
A Christian burial.
GRAVEDIGGER How can that be,
Unless she drowned herself in her
Own defense?
OTHER
Why, ‘tis found so.
GRAVEDIGGER
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, [JH: and] To Perform.
Argal, she drowned herself wittingly.
OTHER Nay, but hear you, goodman delver—
GRAVEDIGGER 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.
OTHER
But is this law?
GRAVEDIGGER
Ay, marry, is it—crowner’s ‘quest law.
OTHER Will ha’ the truth on it?
If this had not been a gentlewoman,
She should have been buried out o’
Christian burial.
GRAVEDIGGER
Why, there thou sayst. And the more pity
That great folk should have countenance
In this world to drown or hang themselves
More than their even-Christian. Come my spade.
There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners,
Ditchers, and grave-makers.
They hold up Adam’s profession.
OTHER
Was he a gentleman?
GRAVEDIGGER
He was the first that ever bore arms.
OTHER Why he had none!
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.
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 it.
Did these bones cost no more the breeding
But to play at loggets with them?
Mine ache to think on it!
GRAVEDIGGER [Sings]
A pickax 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.
[GRAVEDIGGER digs up more skulls.]
HAMLET
There’s another. Why may not that be
Th’ skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now,
His quillities, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?
Why does he suffer this mad knave now to knock him
About the sconce with a dirty shovel
And will not tell him of his action of battery?
Hum, this fellow might be in his 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 scarecely lie in this box—
And must the 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 calves’ skins too.
HAMLET
They are sheep and calves which seek out
Assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow.
[To the GRAVEDIGGER] Who’s grave’s this, sirrah?
GRAVEDIGGER 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 it.
GRAVEDIGGER
You lie out on it, sir, and therefore
‘Tis not yours. For my part, I do not lie in it,
Yet it is mine.
HAMLET
Thou dost lie in it, to be in it
And say it is thine.
‘Tis for the dead, not for the quick;
Therefore, thou liest.
GRAVEDIGGER
‘Tis a quick lie sir;
‘Twill away again from me to you.
HAMLET What man dost thou dig it for?
GRAVEDIGGER For no man, sir.
HAMLET What woman, then?
GRAVEDIGGER For none, neither.
HAMLET Who is to be buried in it?
GRAVEDIGGER
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, this three years
I have took 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 GRAVEDIGGER] How long hast thou
Been a grave-maker?
GRAVEDIGGER
Of all the days in the year,
I came to it that day that our last
King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
HAMLET How long is that since?
GRAVEDIGGER
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 to England.
HAMLET
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
GRAVEDIGGER
Why, because he was mad.
He shall recover his wits there.
Or if do not, ‘tis no great matter there.
HAMLET Why?
GRAVEDIGGER
‘Twill not be seen in him there.
There [JH: In England,]
The men are as mad as he.
HAMLET
How came he mad?
GRAVEDIGGER
Very strangely, they say.
HAMLET How “strangely”?
GRAVEDIGGER
Faith, even with losing his wits.
HAMLET Upon what ground?
GRAVEDIGGER Why, here in Denmark!
I have been sexton here, man and boy,
Thirty years.
HAMLET
How long will a man lie in the earth
Ere he rot?
GRAVEDIGGER
Faith, if he be not rotten
Before he die—as we have many pocky corpses
Nowadays that will scarce hold the layin in—
He will last you some eight year or nine year.
A tanner will last you nine year.
HAMLET
Why he more than another?
GRAVEDIGGER
Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade
That he will keep out water a great while;
And your water is a sore decayer of your
Whoreson dead body. Here’s a skull now
Hath lien you in the earth
Three-and-twenty years.
HAMLET
Whose was it?
GRAVEDIGGER
A whoreson mad fellow’s it was.
Whose do you think it was?
HAMLET Nay, I know not.
GRAVEDIGGER
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue!
He poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head
Once. This same skull, sir, was sir,
Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.
HAMLET This?
GRAVEDIGGER Even that.
HAMLET [taking the skull]
Let me see.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—
A fellow if infinite jest,
Of most excellent fancy.
He hath bore me on his back a thousand times
And now how abhorred in my imagination it is!
My gorge rises at it!
Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs?
Your flashes of merriment that were wont to
Set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock
Your own grinning? Quite chapfallen?
Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her,
Let her paint an inch think, to this favor she must come.
Make her laugh at that.
—Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.
HORATIO What’s that, my lord?
HAMLET
Dost thou think Alexander looked on this fashion
In the earth?
HORATIO Even so.
HAMLET And smelt so? Pah!
[HAMLET puts the skull down.]
HORATIO Even so, my lord.
HAMLET
To what base uses we may return, Horatio!
Why may not imagination trace the noble dust
Of Alexander till he find it 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 enough and likelihood to lead it, as thus:
Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth to dust;
The dust is earth; of earth we make loam;
And why of that loam whereto he was converted
Might they not stop a beer barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth which kept the world in awe
Should pathc a wall to expel the winter’s flaw!
[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES, and the corpse of OPHELIA with a DOCTOR OF DIVINITY.]
But soft, but soft awhile! Here comes the King,
The Queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?
And with such maiméd rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life. ‘Twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile and mark.
[HAMLET and HORATIO step aside.]
LAERTES What ceremony else?
HAMLET That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark!
LAERTES What ceremony else?
DOCTOR
Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful,
And, but that great command o’ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified been lodged
‘Til the last trumpet. For charitable prayers:
Shards, Flints, and Pebbles should be thrown on her
Yet here he is allowed her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.
LAERTES
Must there no more be done?
DOCTOR No more be done.
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing a requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.
LAERTES Lay her in the earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring! I tell thee—churlish priest—
A ministering angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling!
HAMLET [To HORATIO alone]
What, the fair Ophelia?!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Sweets to the sweet, farewell!
[GERTRUDE scatters flowers.]
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked—sweet maid—
And not strewed thy grave.
LAERTES
O treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that curséd head
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of!—Hold off the earth awhile,
‘Til I have caught her once more in my arms!
[LAERTES leaps into OPHELIA’s grave.]
Now pile your dust upon the quick and the dead,
‘Til of this flat a mountain you have made
To o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
Of Blue Olympus.
[HAMLET approaches grave.]
HAMLET
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis, whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane!
[LAERTES rises out of OPHELIA’s grave.]
LAERTES The devil take thy soul!
[HAMLET and LAERTES grapple.]
HAMLET
Thou pray’st not well.
I prithee take thy fingers from my thoat!
For though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet I have in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear! Hold off thy hand!
KING CLAUDIUS
Pluck them asender.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet! Hamlet!
ALL
Gentlemen!
HORATIO
Good my lord, be quiet.
[HAMLET and LAERTES are separated.]
HAMLET
Why, I fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, my son, what theme?
HAMLET
I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum! What wilt thou do for her?!
KING CLAUDIUS
O, he is mad, Laertes!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
For love of God, forbear him!
HAMLET
‘Swounds, show me what thou’t do!
Woo’t weep, woo’t fight, woo’t fast, woo’t tear thyself?!
Woo’t drink up eisel?? Eat a crocodile?!
I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine?!
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her?! And so will I!o
And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, ‘til our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart!! Nay, an thou ‘lt mouth,
I’ll rant as well as thou!!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This is mere madness!
And thus awhile the fit will work on him.
Anon, as patient as the female dove
When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.
HAMLET Hear you, sir.
What is the reason you use me thus?
I love you ever. But it is no matter!
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and the dog will have his day.
[HAMLET exits.]
KING CLAUDIUS
I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.
[HORATIO exits.]
[To LAERTES.] Strengthen your patience in our
last night’s speech.
We’ll put the matter to the present push.
—Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.—
This grave shall have a living monument.
An hour of quiet thereby shall we see.
‘Til then in patience our proceeding be.
[ALL exeunt.]
End of Act V, Scene 2
“tp = LAERTES “gp = GRAVEDIGGER “op = OTHER “lp = HAMLET “wp = HORATIO “dp = DOCTOR