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his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers 13, his recoveries: Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries 14, 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 hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more? ha?

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins? Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calves-skins too. Ham. They are sheep, and calves, which seek out assurance 15 in that. I will speak to this fellow : -Whose grave's this, sirrah?

1 Clo. Mine, sir.

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

[Sings.

Ham. I think it be thine, indeed, for thou liest in't.

1 Clo. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine. Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't, and say it is

13 Shakspeare here is profuse of his legal learning. Ritson, a lawyer, shall interpret for him:- A recovery with double voucher, is the one usually suffered, and is so called from two persons (the latter of whom is always the common cryer, or some such inferior person) being successively voucher, or called upon to warrant the tenant's title. Both fines and recoveries are fictions of law, used to convert an estate tail into a fee simple. Statutes are (not acts of parliament) but statutes merchant, and staple, particular modes of recognizance or acknowledgment for securing debts, which thereby become a charge upon the party's land. Statutes and recognizances are constantly mentioned together in the covenants of a purchase deed.

14 [ Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries,'] omitted in the quarto.

15 A quibble is intended. Deeds (of parchment) are called the common assurances of the realm.

thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

1 Clo. "Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again, from me to you.

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?

1 Clo. For no man, sir.

Ham. What woman then?

1 Clo. For none neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in't?

1 Clo. One, that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

Ham. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card 16, or equivocation will undo us. By the lord, Horatio, these three 17 years I have taken note of it; the age is grown so picked 18, 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?

1 Clo. Of all the days i'the year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras 19.

Ham. How long's that since?

1 Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: It was that very day that young Hamlet was born 20 : he that is mad, and sent into England.

16 To speak by the card,' is to speak precisely, by rule, or according to a prescribed course. It is a metaphor from the seaman's card or chart by which he guides his course.

17 Seven, quarto 1603.

18 Picked is curious, over nice. Thus in the Cambridge Dict. 1594: Conquisitus, exquisite, and picked, perfite, fine, dainty, curious.' See King John, Act i. Sc. 1, p. 339.

19 Look you, here's a skull hath been here this dozen year, let me see, ay, ever since our last King Hamlet slew Fortenbrasse in combat: young Hamlet's father, he that's mad.' Quarto of 1603. It will be seen that the poet places this event thirty years ago in the present copy. See the next note by Sir William Blackstone.

20

By this scene it appears that Hamlet was then thirty years

Ham. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England? 1 Clo. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, 'tis no great matter there.

Ham. Why?

1 Clo. 'Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he 21.

Ham. How came he mad?

1 Clo. Very strangely, they say. Ham. How strangely?

1 Clo. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits. Ham. Upon what ground?

1 Clo. Why, here in Denmark; I have been sexton here, man, and boy, thirty years.

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

1 Clo. 'Faith, if he be not rotten before he die (as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in), he will last eight year, or nine year: a tanner will last you nine

year.

Ham. Why he more than another?

you some

1 Clo. 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 scull now hath lain you i'the earth three-and-twenty years.

Ham. Whose was it?

1 Clo. A whoreson mad fellow's it was; Whose think it was?

do you

old, and knew Yorick well, who had been dead twenty three years. And yet in the beginning of the play he is spoken of as a very young man, one that designed to go back to school, i. e. to the university of Wittenburgh. The poet in the fifth act had forgot what he wrote in the first.'-Blackstone.

21 Nimirum insanus paucis videatur; eo quod Maxima pars hominum morbo jactatur eodem.' Horat. Sat. 3, Lib. ii.

Ham. Nay, I know not.

1 Clo. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue, he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same scull, sir, was Yorick's scull, the king's jester. Ham. This?

1 Clo. E'en that.

[Takes the Scull.

Ham. 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 chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber23, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour 24 she must come; make her laugh at that.-'Pr'ythee, Horatio, tell me one thing. Hor. What's that, my lord?

Ham. Dost thou think, Alexander look'd o'this fashion i'the earth?

Hor. E'en so.

Ham. And smelt so? pah!

Hor. E'en so, my

lord.

[Throws down the Scull.

Ham. 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?

Hor. "Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Ham. No, 'faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead

22 Folio-jeering.
23 Quarto-table.
24 Favour is countenance, complexion.

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 25 Cæsar, dead, and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:

O, that the earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw 26! 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 this they follow? And with such maimed rites! This doth betoken, The corse, they follow, did with desperate hand Fordo 27 its own life. 'Twas of some estate 28. Couch we awhile, and mark.

[Retiring with HORATIO.

Laer. What ceremony else?
Ham.

A very noble youth: Mark.
Laer. What ceremony else?

That is Laertes,

1 Priest 29. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg'd

25 Imperial is substituted in the folio. Vide Troilus and Cressida, Act iv. Sc. 5, p. 425, note 27.

26 A flaw is a violent gust of wind. See Coriolanus, Act v. Sc. 3, p. 254, note 8.

:

27 To fordo is to undo, to destroy. Thus in Othello :

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That either makes me or fordoes me quite.'

Would to God it might be leful for me to fordoo myself, or to make an end of me.'-Acolastus, 1529.

28 Estate for rank. Estates was a common term for persons of rank.

29 Quarto-Doctor.

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