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

Laer.

Alas, then, she is drown'd?

Queen. Drown'd, drown'd.

180

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

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 douts 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.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. A churchyard.

Enter two Clowns, with spades and pickaxes.

191

[Exeunt.

First Clo. Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

Sec. Clo. I tell thee she is; and therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.

First Clo. How can that be, unless she drown'd herself in her own defence?

Sec. Clo. Why, 't is found so.

188. [The woman will be out there will be no more wo manish weakness left in my nature.] 190. douts does out, extinguishes. 4. straight straightway, directly.

First 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, to perform: argal, she drown'd herself wittingly.

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

13

First 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.

Sec. Clo. But is this law?

First Clo. Ay, marry, is 't; crowner's quest law. Sec. Clo. Will you ha' the truth on 't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.

First Clo. Why, there thou say'st: 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 gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and gravemakers: they hold up Adam's profession.

Sec. Clo. Was he a gentleman?

First Clo. He was the first that ever bore arms. Sec. Clo. Why, he had none.

First Clo. What, art a heathen?

understand the Scripture? the Scripture?

How dost thou

The

Scripture says

9. offendendo: the clown's blunder for defendendo, as argal is for ergo.

26. out o' Christian burial. The Christianity of Shakespeare's time prescribed that one who ended his own life should be buried without service, at cross roads, with a stake driven through his heart.

3. even Christian= fellow Christian.

"Adam digg'd:" could he dig without arms? I put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself

Sec. Clo. Go to.

40

First Clo. What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter? Sec. Clo. The gallows-inaker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

First 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.

50

Sec. Clo. "Who builds stronger than a mason, a

shipwright, or a carpenter?"

First Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

Sec. Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

First Clo. To 't.

Sec. Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance.

66

First Clo. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when you are ask'd this question next, say 2 grave-maker:" the houses that he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan stoup of liquor.

fetch me a [Exit Sec. Clown. [He digs, and sings.

41. [Go to: it is difficult to convey the meaning of this Elizabethan colloquialism, which ranges between "Oh, come, now!" nd "Fie!"]

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54. [Marry (by Mary) and Mass (by the Mass) had practieally ceased to be oaths in Shakespeare's time, and become harmless interjections.]

61. Yaughan. Probably the name of the keeper of a well

In youth, when I did love, did love,

Methought it was very sweet,

To contract, oh! the time, for, ah! my behove,

Oh, methought, there was nothing meet.

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

Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

70

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

First Clo. [Sings.]

But age, with his stealing steps,

Hath claw'd me in his clutch,

And hath shipped me intil the land,

As if I had never been such. [Throws up a skull.

Ham. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jawbone, that did the first murther! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

82

known ale-house near the Globe Theatre. It may have been Yaughan, which is Welsh; or that may be merely a spelling of Johan. The matter is of small importance. [This local allu sion does not appear in the quartos, which read "get thee in."]

63. In youth, etc. The three stanzas sung by the clown are from a song in Tottel's Miscellany, published in 1557. But he garbles the text grievously. [Jennens, quoted by Dr. Furness, notes that the "oh" and the "ah" form no part of the song, but are "only the breath forced out by the strokes of the mattock."]

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78. [jowls throws with a jerk; doubly appropriate here because it suggests by its sound "the cheek-bone smiting against the earth." (Clarke.) jowl, noun, otherwise derived, cheek.} 81. [o'er-reaches: the quarto reading; the folios have, in

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Hor. It might, my lord.

Ham. 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 he meant to beg it; might it not?

Hor. Ay, my lord.

89

Ham. Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's ; chapless, and knock'd 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 'em? mine ache to think on 't.

First Clo. [Sings.]

A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,

For, and a shrouding sheet :
Oh, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

98

[Throws up another skull.

Ham. There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities 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 effect, the suggestive though rather strained term "o'eroffices."]

94. loggats: a game in which small logs of wood, loggats, are thrown at a jack.

108. the fine of his fines the end of his fines.

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