FIRST CLOWN.

Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET.

How "strangely "?

FIRST CLOWN.

Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

HAMLET.

Upon what ground?

FIRST CLOWN.

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

HAMLET.

How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot? FIRST CLOWN.

I' faith, if a' be not rotten before a' die-a' will last you some eight year or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.

HAMLET.

Why he more than another?

FIRST CLOWN.

Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade that a' will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your dead body. Here's a skull now: this skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years.

Whose was it?

HAMLET.

FIRST CLOWN.

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

Nay, I know not.

HAMLET.

FIRST CLOWN.

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.

HAMLET. (Takes the skull.)

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

HORATIO.

What's that, my lord?

HAMLET.

Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the earth?

HORATIO.

E'en so.