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.

[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 that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

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

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

1 Immediately.

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 of christian burial.

1 Clown. Why, there thou sayest: and the more pity, that great folks shall have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even1 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 Fellow.

1 Clown. 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

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.1

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 that he makes

:

1 Give over.

last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan, and

fetch me a stoup of liquor.

1 Clown digs and sings.

[Exit 2 Clown.

'In youth when I did love, did love,1

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.

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

Ham. 'Tis ev'n so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

1 Clown. But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch;

And hath shipped me into the land,
As if I had never been such.'

[throws up a scull.

Ham. That scull 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! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God;—might it not?

This song was written by Lord Vaux, and is printed intire in Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.

Ho. 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?

Ham. Why, ev'n so: and now my lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard 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 loggats 1 with them? mine ache to think on 't.

1

1 Clown. A pickaxe, and a spade, a spade,

3

For-and a shrouding sheet:

[sings.

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.'
[throws up a scull.

Ham. There's another. Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits 2 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? Humph! This fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognisances, his fines,

An ancient game resembling quoits. 2 Subtilties.

3 Nice and frivolous distinctions.