HAMLET         Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

HORATIO        What’s that, my lord?

HAMLET         Dost thou think Alexander looked o’this fashion i’th’ earth?

HORATIO        E’en so.

HAMLET         And smelt so? Pah!

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 ’a find it stopping a bung-hole?

HORATIO        ’Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.    (5.1.184-195)

Hamlet’s INTERESTED, but he’s stepping back from the sense of personal connection with Yorick—too much?—to a larger, more philosophical question, and he thinks that Horatio might be interested too. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing. What’s that, my lord? Horatio, as ever, polite, supportive, although surely this is much, much weirder than any conversation he thought he’d be having with Hamlet on his return from England. Dost thou think Alexander look o’this fashion i’th’ earth? You know, the big guy, even him, post post post mortem? Like—this? E’en so. Absolutely. Hamlet’s pushing it—yes, it’s a meditation on mortality, death comes to us all, how are the mighty fallen, but there’s also potential for a bit of schoolboy gross-out daring: and smelt so? (takes a sniff, perhaps offers Horatio the same.) Pah! Yuck! Gross! This is an opportunity for Horatio to demonstrate yet again that he is The Stoic, solid, serious, dispassionate, although uneasy, even concealing shock, is another option. E’en so, my lord. Yes that would be the case. The rock against which Hamlet can fling himself. Hamlet’s marvelling, testing the waters for another riff: to what base uses we may return, Horatio! Just imagine the things that can happen to us after our death! When we are clay once more! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander ’till a find it stopping a bung-hole? All that greatness, that Greatness, transformed into a bit of clay to close up a barrel? A plug, a stopper, temporary, utterly unremarkable. WOW. Horatio does push back a wee bit here: ’Twere to consider too curiously to consider so. Come on, you’re being a bit excessive here, mate. Imagination’s one thing, but you’re going too far now, please can you put the skull down?