LITMIR.BIZ

ACT V.

       Table of Contents

      SCENE I. A churchyard.

       [Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c.]

       1 Clown. Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?

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

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

       2 Clown. Why, ‘tis found so.

       1 Clown. 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.

       2 Clown. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,—

       1 Clown. 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.

       2 Clown. But is this law?

       1 Clown. Ay, marry, is’t—crowner’s quest law.

       2 Clown. Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.

       1 Clown. 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 gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam’s profession.

       2 Clown. Was he a gentleman?

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

       2 Clown. Why, he had none.

       1 Clown. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says Adam digg’d: could he dig without arms? I’ll put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself,—

       2 Clown. Go to.

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

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

       1 Clown. 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 Clown. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

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

       2 Clown. Marry, now I can tell.

       1 Clown. To’t.

       2 Clown. Mass, I cannot tell.

       [Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance.]

       1 Clown. 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 he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of liquor.

       [Exit Second 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, 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 Clown.

       [Sings.]

       But age, with his stealing steps,

       Hath claw’d me in his clutch,

       And hath shipp’d me into 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 ‘twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o’erreaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

       Hor.

       It might, my lord.

       Ham. Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?’ This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one’s horse when he meant to beg it,—might it not?

       Hor.

       Ay, my lord.

       Ham. Why, e’en so: and now my Lady Worm’s; chapless, and knocked about the mazard with a sexton’s spade: here’s fine revolution, an we had the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggets with ‘em? mine ache to think on’t.

       1 Clown.

       [Sings.]

       A pickaxe 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.

       [Throws up another skull].

       Ham. There’s another: why may not that be the skull 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? Hum! 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 scarcely 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 sheepskins?

       Hor.

       Ay, my lord, And of calf-skins too.

       Ham. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I

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