HAMLET Why, e'en so, and now my lady Worm's, chapless82, and knocked about the mazzard83 with a sexton's spade: here's fine revolution, if we had the trick to see't. Did these bones84
cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats85 with 'em?
Mine ache to think on't.
Sings
FIRST CLOWN A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet88: O, a pit of clay for to be made
Throws up another skull
For such a guest is meet.
HAMLET There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets92, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude93
knave now to knock him about the sconce94 with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery95? Hum. This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes96, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers97, his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines98 and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouch99ers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the100
length and breadth of a pair of indentures101? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box102; and must the inheritor103 himself have no more, ha?
HORATIO Not a jot more, my lord.
HAMLET Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
HORATIO Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
HAMLET They are sheep and calves that seek out assurance in107
that. I will speak to this fellow.-- Whose grave's this, sirrah108?
FIRST CLOWN Mine, sir.
Sings
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.
HAMLET I think it be thine, indeed, for thou liest in't.
FIRST CLOWN You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours. For my part, I do not lie114 in't, and yet it is mine.
HAMLET Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say 'tis thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick116: therefore thou liest.
FIRST CLOWN 'Tis a quick lie, sir: 'twill away again, from me to you.
HAMLET What man dost thou dig it for?
FIRST CLOWN For no man, sir.
HAMLET What woman, then?
FIRST CLOWN For none, neither.
HAMLET Who is to be buried in't?
FIRST CLOWN One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.