Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,

It could not move thus.

Oph. You must sing, Down a-down, an you call him a-down-a. O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter.

Laer. This nothing's more than matter.

Oph There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember and there is pansies, that's for thoughts,

Laer. A document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines :-there's rue for you; and here's some for me:-we may call it, herb of grace o'Sundays:-you may wear your rue with a difference.-There's a daisy: -I would give you some violets; but they withered all, when my father died :-They say, he made a good end,

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy,—

Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, all,
She turns to favor, and to prettiness.

Oph. And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead,

Go to thy death-bed,

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll:

[Sings.

He is gone, he is gone,

.

And we cast away moan;

And peace be with his soul!

And with all Christian souls! I pray heaven be wi' you!

Laer. Do you see this, O heaven.

King. Laertes, I must commune with your grief,

Or you deny me right. Go but apart,

Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me:
If by direct or by collateral hand

They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,

To you in satisfaction; but, if not,

Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labor with your soul
To give it due content.

Laer.

Let this be so;

His means of death, his obscure funeral,—

No trophy, sword, nor hatchment, o'er his bones,
No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,-

Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call't in question.

[Exit OPHELIA.

King.

So you shall; And, where the offence is, let the great axe fall. I pray you, go with me.

[Exeunt.

The ship in which Hamlet is embarked for England is attacked by pirates; Hamlet boards the pirate's vessel, and is captured, but is treated with mercy, and landed on the Danish coast. He sends letters to the King and Horatio, announcing his return, and desires the latter to repair to him immediately.

In the interim, the King and Laertes become reconciled, and plan together the death of Hamlet.

Laertes is to engage the Prince at a match of fencing, and with a poisoned rapier he engages to slay Hamlet, and thus revenge the death of Polonius. The conference is interrupted by the Queen, who rushes in to announce the fate of Ophelia.

Enter QUEEN.

King. How now, sweet queen?

Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow:-Your sister's drown'd, Laertes. Laer. Drown'd! O, where!

Queen. There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies, and herself,
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, a while they bore her up:
Which time, she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indu'd

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.

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 drowns it.

King.

[Exit.

Let's follow, Gertrude;

[Exeund.

How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I, this will give it start again;
Therefore, let's follow.

March 4th 7657

ACT V.

SCENE I.-A Church-Yard.

Enter Two Clowns, with spades, &c.

1st Clo. Is she to be buried in christian burial, that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

2nd Clo. I tell thee, she is; therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath set on her, and finds it christian burial.

1st Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

2nd Clo. Why, 'tis found so.

1st 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, and to perform: Argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

2nd Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.

1st 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.

2nd Clo. But is this law?

1st Clo. Ay, marry is't; crowner's-quest law.

2nd Clo. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out of christian burial.

1st Clo. Why, there thou say'st: And the more pity; that great folks shall 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.

2nd Clo. Was he a gentleman?

1st Clo, He was the first that ever bore arms.

2nd Clo. Why, he had none.

1st Clo. What, art 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

2nd Clo. Go to.

1st Clo. What is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

2d Clo. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand

tenants.

1st 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.

2nd Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

1st Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

2nd Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

1st Clo. To't.

2nd Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance.

1st Clo. 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 that he makes, last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a stoup of liquor. [Exit 2nd Clown.

1st Clown digs, and sings.

In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought, it was very sweet,

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove

O, methought, there was nothing meet.

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

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

Ham. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense. 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 jaw-bone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician; one that would circumvent heaven, might it not?

Hor. It might, my lord.

Ham. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with them? mine ache to think on't. There's another: Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillits, 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 his box; and must the inheritor himself have no more?

ha?

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham. I will speak to this fellow :-Whose grave is this, sirrah? 1st Clo. Mine, sir.

O a pit of clay for to be made,

For such a guest is meet.

Ham. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.

[Sings,

1st 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.

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.

1st Clo. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again, from me to you. Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?

1st Clo. For no man, sir.

Ham. What woman, then? 1st Clo. For none neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in't?

1st 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?

1st 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?

1st 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?

1st Clo. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, 'tis no great matter there.

Ham. Why?

1st Clo. "Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

Ham. How came he mad?

1st Clo. Very strangely, they say.

Ham. How strangely?

1st Clo. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

Ham. Upon what ground?

1st 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?

1st Clo. Why, sir, here's a skull now hath lain you i' the earth three-and-twenty years.

Ham. Whose was it?

1st Clo. A mad fellow's it was; Whose do you think it was? Ham. Nay, I know not.

1st Clo. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

Ham. This ?

1st Clo. E'en that.

[Takes the skull.

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. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your