As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

Laer.

Alas! then, is she drowned?

Queen. Drowned, drowned!

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,2
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.

3

[Exit.

Let's follow, Gertrude.

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

1 Incapable.] Unsusceptible, insensible.

[Exeunt.

2 When these are gone, &c.] When these tears are gone, the woman will have gone out of me along with them.

Folly.] Weakness.

ACT V.

SCENE I-A Churchyard.

Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c.

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

2 Clo. I tell thee she is; and therefore make her grave straight:1 the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it christian burial.

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

2 Clo. Why, 't is found so.

1 Clo. It must be se offendendo;2 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,3 she drowned herself wittingly. 2 Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.—

1 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; 4 mark you that; but if the water come to him, and drown him, he

1 Straight.] At once.

2 Se offendendo.] By offending herself; that is, it cannot be in defence of herself, but by offence to herself.

3

Argal.] The clown's corruption of ergo.

Will he nill he.] Lat. nolens volens. Nill is a contraction for ne will. 'Such men should be witnesses-will they nill they.' Latimer's Sixth Sermon before K. Edward. 'Will I or nill I, it must be done.' Edwards' Damon and Pythias. For, will I nill I, so methinks I must.' Grim, the Collier of Croydon, iii.

drowns not himself: argal, he that is not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life.

2 Clo. But is this law?

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

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

1 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.2 Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession.

2 Clo. Was he a gentleman?

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

2 Clo. Why, he had none.

1 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

1 Crowner's-quest law.] Sir John Hawkins says: 'I strongly suspect that this is a ridicule on the case of Dame Hales, reported by Plowden in his Commentaries, as determined in 3 Eliz. It seems her husband, Sir James Hales, had drowned himself in a river, and the question was, whether by this act a forfeiture of a lease from the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, which he was possessed of, did not accrue to the Crown. The legal and logical subtleties arising in the course of the argument of this case gave a very fair opportunity for a sneer at crowner's-quest law.' See some details in Staunton's Shakspeare, Illustrative Comment.

1 Even christian.] Fellow-christian. The right faith abideth not in that man that is disposed purposely to sin, to hate his even christian,' &c., Latimer's Seventh Sermon on the Lord's Prayer. 'We are born into this world, not for our own sakes only, but for our even christian's sake.' Latimer's Sermon, 4th Sunday after Epiphany. The expression occurs several times in Chaucer's Parson's Tale.

2 Clo. Go to.

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

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

1 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.

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

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

2 Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clo. To't.

3 Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO at a distance.

1 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;2 fetch me a stoup of liquor. Exit 2 Clown.

Unyoke.]

1 Clown digs, and sings.

In youth, when I did love, did love,3

Methought it was very sweet,

Unyoke the heifer; end your task. I suppose here an allusion to Judg. xiv. 18, 'If ye had not ploughed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.'

2 Yaughan.] What this word denotes has not been ascertained; it may mean, perhaps, Yohan's or John's.-'Here's a slave about the town here, a Jew, one Yohan.' B. Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, v. 6.

In youth, when I did love.] The grave-digger's song is taken from three stanzas of a barbarous version of a poem by Sir Thomas

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
O, methought there was nothing meet.

Ham. Hath this fellow no feeling of his business, that 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.

1 Clo. But age, with his stealing steps,

Hath caught me in his clutch,

And hath shipped me intill 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 murder! It might be the

Vaux (not, as once supposed, by his father, Sir Nicholas). They are given nearly as follows in Percy's Reliques :

Probably Shakspeare intended the clown to make a blundering version. The word that in the first and second lines is for what: I loathe what I did love, what in youth I thought sweet, &c. The interjections O! and ah! are interruptions expressive of the clown's exertions in handling his tools.