Faculty of English

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. GRAVEDIGGER (Sings.)         A pickaxe and […]

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. This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now o’erreaches – one that would circumvent God, might it not? HORATIO       It might, […]

GRAVEDIGGER (Sings.)         In youth when I did love, did love,         Methought it was very sweet         To contract-a the time for-a my behove,         O, methought there-a was nothing-a meet! Enter HAMLET and HORATIO. HAMLET         Has this fellow no feeling of his business? ’A sings in grave-making. HORATIO       Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness. HAMLET         ’Tis […]

2 MAN Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright or a carpenter? GRAVEDIGGER           Ay, tell me that and unyoke. 2 MAN Marry, now I can tell. GRAVEDIGGER           To’t! 2 MAN Mass, I cannot tell. GRAVEDIGGER           Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating. And […]

GRAVEDIGGER           What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright or the carpenter? 2 MAN The gallows-maker, for that outlives a thousand tenants. GRAVEDIGGER           I like thy wit well, in good faith. The gallows does well. But how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now, thou dost […]

2 MAN Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial. GRAVEDIGGER           Why, there thou sayst, and the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even-Christen. Come, my spade. There […]

2 MAN Nay, but hear you, goodman delver. GRAVEDIGGER           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, willy-nilly, he goes. Mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not […]

CW: suicide Enter two Clowns [a GRAVEDIGGER and a SECOND MAN]. GRAVEDIGGER           Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully seeks her own salvation? 2 MAN I tell thee she is. Therefore make her grave straight. The crowner hath sat on her and finds it Christian burial. GRAVEDIGGER           How can that be […]

LAERTES        Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet It is our trick – nature her custom holds Let shame say what it will. When these are gone The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord, I have a speech o’fire that fain would blaze But that this folly drowns it. (Exit.) CLAUDIUS                  Let’s follow, Gertrude. How much I had to do […]

GERTRUDE                Her clothes spread wide And mermaid–like awhile they bore her up, Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and endued Unto that element. But long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death. LAERTES                    Alas, then she is drowned . GERTRUDE    Drowned, drowned.  […]