The Best of Shakespeare:. William Shakespeare
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And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepar’d him
A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck,
Our purpose may hold there.
[Enter Queen.]
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 aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.
There, on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb’ring 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, awhile they bore her up;
Which time she chaunted 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 douts it.
[Exit.]
King.
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.
[Exeunt.]
ACT V.
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