HAMLET.
Ay, marry, why was be sent into England?
1 CLOWN.
Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there;
or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.
HAMLET.
Why?
1 CLOWN.
'Twill not he seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.
HAMLET.
How came he mad?
1 CLOWN.
Very strangely, they say.
HAMLET.
How strangely?
1 CLOWN.
Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
HAMLET.
Upon what ground?
1 CLOWN.
Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy,
thirty years.
HAMLET.
How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?
1 CLOWN.
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.
HAMLET.
Why he more than another?
1 CLOWN.
Why, sir, his hide is so tann'd 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; this skull hath lain
in the earth three-and-twenty years.
HAMLET.
Whose was it?
1 CLOWN.
A whoreson, mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?
HAMLET.
Nay, I know not.
1 CLOWN.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! 'a pour'd a flagon of
Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's
skull, the king's jester.
HAMLET.
This?
1 CLOWN.
E'en that.
HAMLET.
Let me see. [Takes the skull.] 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 kiss'd 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.
HORATIO.
What's that, my lord?
HAMLET.
Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the earth?
HORATIO.
E'en so.
HAMLET.
And smelt so? Pah!
[Throws down the skull.]
HORATIO.
E'en 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 bung-hole?
HORATIO.
'Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.
