Act 5; Scene 1
A churchyard.
Enter two Clowns with spades, &c.
FIRST CLOWN.
Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?
SECOND CLOWN.
I tell thee she is, and therefore make her grave straight. The crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.
FIRST CLOWN.
How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?
SECOND CLOWN.
Why, ’tis found so.
FIRST 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, to perform. Argal, she
drowned herself wittingly.
SECOND CLOWN.
Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,—
FIRST 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.
SECOND CLOWN.
But is this law?
FIRST CLOWN.
Ay, marry, is’t, crowner’s quest law.
SECOND CLOWN.
Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial. But if Ophelia died because a limb she was climbing up broke, would that not be considered an accident. If she did it while being mad, wouldn’t that be considered a suicide? To commit suicide, one has to do something that contributes to one’s death. Ophelia simply didn’t try to swim, and if she had, would it have done any good? It’s not like she fashioned a noose out of a rope and hung herself. Cassandra knows what awaits her if she enters the Megaron, because she’s psychic, but she goes in anyway. She could have easily escaped the Chorus, but she didn’t have anywhere to go, and everything she knew, everything she loved, had been ripped away from her at that point, so what did she have to live for? It’s the same with Ophelia, almost everyone she loved, her father and Hamlet, was gone.
FIRST CLOWN.
Why, there thou sayst. And the more
pity that great folk should have count’nance in this
world to drown or hang themselves more than
their even-Christian. Come, my spade. There is no
ancient gentlemen but gard’ners, ditchers, and
grave-makers. They hold up Adam’s profession.
SECOND CLOWN.
Was he a gentleman?
FIRST CLOWN.
He was the first that ever bore arms.
SECOND CLOWN.
Why, he had none.
FIRST 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—
SECOND CLOWN.
Go to.
FIRST CLOWN.
What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
SECOND CLOWN.
The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.
FIRST CLOWN.
I like thy wit well, in good faith. The
gallows does well. But how does it well? It does Gallows for murderers.
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.
SECOND CLOWN.
Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?
FIRST CLOWN.
Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
SECOND CLOWN.
Marry, now I can tell.
FIRST CLOWN.
To’t.
SECOND CLOWN.
Mass, I cannot tell.
Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance.
FIRST 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
lasts till doomsday. Go, get thee in, and 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, a, my behove,
O methought there was nothing meet.
HAMLET.
Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?
HORATIO.
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness. Just as murderers become inured to the thought of killing. The first one is the hardest.
HAMLET.
’Tis e’en so; the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.
FIRST 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.]
HAMLET.
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! Cain and Abel again, brothers murdering brothers because of jealousy.
This might be the pate of a politician which this ass
now o’erreaches, one that would circumvent God,
might it not? Speculating about who the skull belongs to because all skulls look about the same unless severely deformed in some way. It might even be the skull of a king.
HORATIO.
It might, my lord.
HAMLET.
Or of a courtier, which could say “Good
morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, sweet lord?”
This might be my Lord Such-a-one that praised my
Lord Such-a-one’s horse when he went to beg it,
might it not?
HORATIO.
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET.
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 them? Mine
ache to think on ’t.
FIRST 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.]
HAMLET.
There’s another. Why may not that be the
skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his
quillities, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why
does he suffer this mad 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 th’ inheritor himself have no more, ha?
HORATIO.
Not a jot more, my lord.
HAMLET.
Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?
HORATIO.
Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
HAMLET.
They are sheep and calves which seek out
assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow.—
Whose grave’s this, sirrah?
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 ’tis not yours.
For my part, I do not lie in’t, yet it is mine.
HAMLET.
Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say it is thine. ’Tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.
FIRST CLOWN.
’Tis a quick lie, sir; ’t will 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.
HAMLET.
How absolute the knave is! We must speak by
the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the
Lord, Horatio, this three years I have took note of
it: the age is grown so picked that the toe of the
peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he
galls his kibe.—How long hast thou been
grave-maker?
FIRST CLOWN.
Of all the days i’ th’ year, I came to’t that day that our last King Hamlet o’ercame Fortinbras.
HAMLET.
How long is that since?
FIRST CLOWN.
Cannot you tell that? Every fool can
tell that. It was that very day that young Hamlet
was born—he that is mad, and sent into England.
HAMLET.
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
FIRST CLOWN.
Why, because he was mad. He shall
recover his wits there. Or if he do not, ’tis no great
matter there.
HAMLET.
Why?
FIRST CLOWN.
’Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.
HAMLET.
How came he mad?
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. Let’s split this hair. The clown says he has been sexton for 30 years. He says he started as a boy. How old was he when he started? If he started when he was 7, that would make Hamlet 23 or 28 if the sexton became a gravedigger at 12. Hamlet is much too immature to be a 30-year-old man.
HAMLET.
How long will a man lie i’ th’earth ere he rot?
FIRST CLOWN.
Faith, if he be not rotten before he die
(as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will
scarce hold the laying in), he 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 he will keep out water a great while; and
your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead
body. Here’s a skull now hath lien you i’ th’ earth
three-and-twenty years.
HAMLET.
Whose was it?
FIRST CLOWN.
A whoreson, mad fellow’s it was. Whose do you think it was?
HAMLET.
Nay, I know not.
FIRST CLOWN.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue!
He poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once.
This same skull, sir, was, sir, Yorick’s skull, the How does he know it is Yorick’s skull? All skulls look the kind of look alike. One of the big questions about Hamlet is why is Yorrick such an important part of the play and why even put him there at all. Yorrick is there because in the Orestia, upon his return to Mycenae, Orestes goes to the graveyard and mourns for a man he hasn’t seen since he was a small child. Yorrick could also be acting as a type of memento mori to remind Hamlet of his mortality. The real question is, why are the gravediggers there? I think it was to distract people from realizing that this scene is exactly like a scene in the Libation Bearers, as well as to introduce the dead Yorick, because Hamlet’s not likely to start digging up graveyards for no reason. Shakespeare’s a little extra; it’s why we love him.
King’s jester.
HAMLET.
This?
FIRST CLOWN.
E’en that.
HAMLET.
Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Let me see. Alas, poor
Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore 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 chapfallen? Now get you to my
lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch
thick, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh
at that.—Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing. Yorick was a man Hamlet had not seen since he was a small child. Like Orestes had not seen Agamemnon.
HORATIO.
What’s that, my lord?
HAMLET.
Dost thou think Alexander looked Alexander the Great died and rotted like everyone else, even though he practically conquered the world. o’ this fashion i’ th’earth?
HORATIO.
E’en so.
HAMLET.
And smelt so? Pah!
[Throws down the skull.]
HORATIO.
E’en so, my lord.
HAMLET.
To what base uses we may return, Horatio!
Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of
Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?
HORATIO.
’Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.
HAMLET.
No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither,
with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it, as
thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander
returneth to dust; the dust is earth; of earth
we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he
was converted might they not stop a beer barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth which kept the world in awe
Should patch a wall t’ expel the winter’s flaw! Emperors and Conquerors all end up the same as court jesters in the end. No matter what you do in life, it doesn’t matter because you will always end up dead.
But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King.
Enter priests, &c, in procession; the corpse of Ophelia, Laertes and Mourners following; King, Queen, their Trains, &c.
The Queen, the courtiers. Who is that they follow?
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo it own life. ’Twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile and mark. Orestes and Pylades also hid when Electra and the Libation Bearers approached Agamemnon’s tomb.
[Retiring with Horatio.]
LAERTES.
What ceremony else?
HAMLET.
That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.
LAERTES.
What ceremony else?
PRIEST.
Her obsequies have been as far enlarg’d
As we have warranties. Her death was doubtful;
And but that great command o’ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodg’d
Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.
Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.
LAERTES.
Must there no more be done?
PRIEST.
No more be done.
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing sage requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.
LAERTES.
Lay her i’ th’earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist’ring angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.
HAMLET.
What, the fair Ophelia?
QUEEN.
[Scattering flowers.] Sweets to the sweet. Farewell.
I hop’d thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid,
And not have strew’d thy grave.
LAERTES.
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Depriv’d thee of. Hold off the earth a while,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
[Leaps into the grave.]
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus. It’s a little bit over the top. It’s a shame they didn’t treat her that well when she was alive.
HAMLET.
[Advancing.]
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wand’ring stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane. By calling himself the Dane, like his father was the Dane, Hamlet is declaring himself fit to be king.
[Leaps into the grave.]
LAERTES.
[Grappling with him.] The devil take thy soul!
HAMLET.
Thou pray’st not well.
I prithee take thy fingers from my throat;
For though I am not splenative and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear. Away thy hand!
KING.
Pluck them asunder.
QUEEN.
Hamlet! Hamlet!
All.
Gentlemen!
HORATIO.
Good my lord, be quiet.
[The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave.]
HAMLET.
Why, I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.
QUEEN.
O my son, what theme?
HAMLET.
I lov’d Ophelia; forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her? He certainly acted as if he loved her. Didn’t he?
KING.
O, he is mad, Laertes.
QUEEN.
For love of God forbear him!
HAMLET.
’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do:
Woul’t weep? woul’t fight? woul’t fast? woul’t tear thyself?
Woul’t drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I.
And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart. Nay, an thou’lt mouth,
I’ll rant as well as thou.
QUEEN.
This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclos’d,
His silence will sit drooping.
HAMLET.
Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I lov’d you ever. But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
[Exit.]
KING.
I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.
[Exit Horatio.]
[To Laertes]
Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech;
We’ll put the matter to the present push.—
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
This grave shall have a living monument.
An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then in patience our proceeding be.
[Exeunt.]
After killing Polonius, Hamlet leaves Denmark as a prince and a boy (If not in years then in maturity. The murder of Polonius results in him losing his innocence which coupled with the death of his father and the loss of his ideals, makes him jaded. A good king cannot be pious because sometimes they must do something bad or evil to protect the kingdom and the people of that kingdom.) He left as a boy and returned as a man, ready to take on the mantle of a king. The first place he goes upon his return is the graveyard and is accompanied by his best friend. In the graveyard Hamlet mourns a man he hasn’t seen since he was a small child (as well as the loss of his innocence). The two young men notice a funeral procession walking toward them and decide to hide until they learn who has died. At the head of the funeral procession is Hamlet’s twin, Laertes (Character twin).. When Orestes left Mycenae, he was a boy and a prince and traveled to a distant kingdom. When he returned, he was a man, ready to take up the mantle of a king. The first place he went upon his return was the graveyard. He was accompanied by his best friend. Once in the graveyard he mourns a man he had not seen since he was a small child. As they are standing there, they notice a funeral procession heading their way and decide to hide so that they can learn who is dead. At the head of the funeral procession is Orestes twin, Electra (Fraternal twin). This is the main evidence for Hamlet being based on the Orestia. I could be wrong. It could actually be based on a 15th-century romance, but what is that 15th-century romance based on?
It is often said that this act seems to be like a complete different play from Acts 1-4 and that’s because it is. This is the first scene of the Libation Bearers