HAMLET.
How long will a man lie i’ th’earth ere he rot?
FIRST CLOWN.
Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,—as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in,—he will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.
HAMLET.
Why he more than another?
FIRST CLOWN.
Why, sir, his hide is so tann’d 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 skull now; this skull hath lain in the earth three-and-twenty years.
HAMLET.
Whose was it?
FIRST CLOWN.
A whoreson, mad fellow’s it was. Whose do you think it was?
HAMLET.
Nay, I know not.
FIRST CLOWN.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! A pour’d a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.
HAMLET.
This?
FIRST CLOWN.
E’en that.