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First Clown:
’Tis a quick lie, sir; ’t will away again from me to you.
Hamlet:
What man dost thou dig it for?
First Clown:
For no man, sir.
Hamlet:
What woman then?
First Clown:
For none neither.
Hamlet:
Who is to be buried in’t?
First Clown:
One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.
Hamlet:
How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked 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?
First Clown:
Of all the days i’ th’ year, I came to't that day that our last King Hamlet o’ercame Fortinbras.
Hamlet:
How long is that since?
First Clown:
Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was born,—he that is mad, and sent into England.
Hamlet:
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
First Clown:
Why, because he was mad; he shall recover his wits there; or if he do not, it’s no great matter there.
Hamlet:
Why?
First Clown:
’Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.
Hamlet:
How came he mad?
First Clown:
Very strangely, they say.
Hamlet:
How strangely?
First Clown:
Faith, e’en with losing his wits.
Hamlet:
Upon what ground?
First Clown:
Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.
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.