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1 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 taken 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 a grave maker?

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1 Clown

Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

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1 Clown Cannot

you tell that? every fool can tell that: it was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that is mad, and sent into England.

Hamlet-Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

1 Clown - Why, because a' was mad: a' shall recover his wits there; or, if a' do not, it's no great matter there.

Hamlet-Why?

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1 Clown "Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

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1 Clown - Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

Hamlet-Upon what ground?

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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?

1 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?

1 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.

Hamlet-Whose was it?

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1 Clown - A mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was? Hamlet-Nay, I know not.

1 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-This?

1 Clown- E'en that.

Hamlet Let me see.

[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 chopfallen? 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.

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- What's that, my lord?

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

Horatio E'en so.

Hamlet-And smelt so? pah!

Horatio-E'en so, my lord.

[Puts down the skull.

Why

Hamlet-To what base uses we may return, Horatio! 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 into 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 Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:

Oh that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!

But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the king.

Enter Priests, etc., in procession; the Corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES, and Mourners following; KING, QUEEN, their trains, etc.

The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?
And with such maimèd rites? This doth betoken

The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life: 'twas of some estate.

Couch we awhile, and mark.

Laertes

What ceremony else?

Hamlet

[Retiring with HORATIO.

That is Laertes, a very noble youth: mark.

Laertes

What ceremony else?

Lear in the Storm

Photogravure from an old mezzotint

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