E'en that.

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

A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?

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 skull now; this skull has lain in the earth
three and twenty years.

I' 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.

Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man
and boy, thirty years.

Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

Very strangely, they say.

'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men
are as mad as he.

Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it
was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that
is mad, and sent into England.

Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day
that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

For none, neither.

For no man, sir.

'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to
you.

You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not
yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.

Mine, sir.
Sings
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

Sings
A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

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.

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: fetch me a
stoup of liquor.
Exit Second ...

To't.

Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows
does well; but how does it well? it does well to
those that do in: 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 ...

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

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--

He was the first that ever bore arms.

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
gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
they hold up Adam's profession.

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

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 ...

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 drowned
herself wittingly.

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

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