Ham. There's another: Why may not that be the scull 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? 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. Ham. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't. 1 Clo. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine. m quiddits, &c.] i. e. Subtleties. quillets,] Nice and frivolous distinctions. the sconce-] i. e. The head. statutes,] A species of security for money, affecting real property, whereby the lands of the debtor, are conveyed to the creditor, till out of the rents and profits of them his debt may be satisfied.-MALONE. P - double vouchers, &c.] A recovery with double voucher is the one usually suffered, and is so denominated from two persons (the latter of whom is always the common cryer, or some such inferior person,) being successively voucher, or called upon, to warrant the tenant's title. Both fines and recoveries are fictions of law, used to convert an estate tail into a fee simple. Statutes are (not acts of parliament, but) statutes-merchant and staple, particular modes of recognizance or acknowledgment for securing debts, which thereby become a charge upon the party's land. Statutes and recognizances are constantly mentioned together in the covenants of a purchase deed.-RITSON. —assurance in that.] A quibble is intended. Deeds, which are usually written on parchment, are called the common assurances of the kingdom.-MALONE. Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't, and say it is thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest. 1 Clo. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again, from me to you. Ham. What man dost thou dig it for? Ham. What woman then? 1 Clo. For none neither. Ham. Who is to be buried in't? 1 Clo. One, that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead. Ham. 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.-How long hast thou been a grave maker? 1 Clo. Of all the days i'the year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. Ham. How long's that since? 1 Clo. 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 into England. Ham. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England? : 1 Clo. Why, because he was mad he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, 'tis no great matter there. Ham. Why? 1 Clo. 'Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he. Ham. How came he mad? 1 Clo. Very strangely, they say. we must speak by the card,] The card is the mariner's compass, or more properly the paper on which the points of the wind are marked. To speak by the card is to speak with great exactness, true to a point.-NARES. -picked,] i. e. Spruce, affected. It is a metaphor taken from birds, who dress themselves by picking out or pruning their broken or superfluous feathers. STEEVENS. -- that young Hamlet was born:] By this scene it appears that Hamlet was then thirty years old, and knew Yorick well, who had been dead twentytwo years. And yet in the beginning of the play he is spoken of as a very young man, one that designed to go back to school, i. e. to the university of Wittenberg. The poet in the fifth act had forgot what he wrote in the first. -BLACKSTONE. Ham. How strangely? 1 Clo. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits. Ham. Upon what ground? 1 Clo. Why, here in Denmark; I have been sexton here, man, and boy, thirty years. Ham. How long will a man lie i'the earth ere he rot? 1 Clo. 'Faith, if he be not rotten before he die, (as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in,) he will last you some eight year, or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year. Ham. Why he more than another? 1 Clo. 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 scull now hath lain you i'the earth three-and-twenty years. Ham. Whose was it? 1 Clo. A whoreson mad fellow's it was; Whose do you think it was? Ham. Nay, I know not. This same scull, 1 Clo. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. sir, was Yorick's scull, the king's jester. Ham. This? 1 Clo. E'en that. [Takes the Scull. Ham. Alas, poor Yorick !—I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne 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 chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour" she must come; make her laugh at that.-Pr'ythee, Horatio, tell me one thing. Ham. Dost thou think, Alexander looked o'this fashion i'the earth? Hor. E'en so. Ham. And smelt so? pah! Hor. E'en so, my lord. [Throws down the Scull. Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole? Hor. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so. Ham. 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 returned 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 Cæsar, dead, and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away: O, that the earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw !* But soft! but soft! aside;-Here comes the king, Enter Priests, &c. in Procession; the Corpse of OPHELIA, The queen, the courtiers: Who is this they follow? Ham. A very noble youth: Mark. Laer. What ceremony else? [Retiring with HORATIO. That is Laertes, 1 Priest. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg'd As we have warranty: Her death was doubtful; And, but that great command o'ersways the order, Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home Laer. Must there no more be done? No more be done! We should profane the service of the dead, As to peace-parted souls. Laer. Lay her i'the earth;— And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring!—I tell thee, churlish priest, When thou liest howling. Ham. What, the fair Ophelia ! Queen. Sweets to the sweet: Farewell! [Scattering Flowers. I hop❜d, thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife; I thought, thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, And not have strew'd thy grave. Laer. Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead; Ham. [advancing.] What is he, whose grief b Shards,] i. e. Broken pots or tiles, called pot-sherds, tile-sherds. crants,] i. e. Garlands. The word is German, burial.] i. e. Interment in consecrated ground.-WARBURTON. a requiem,] i. e. A mass performed in Popish churches for the rest of the soul of a person deceased.-STEEVENS. |