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 th’ 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’er-offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not?
HORATIO.
It might, my lord.
HAMLET.
Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?’ This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one’s horse when he meant 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 ’em? 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.]