"The pellican, for to revive her younge,

Doth pierce her brest, and geve them of her blood.
Then searche your breste, and as you have with tonge
With penne proceede to doe our countrie good:

Your zeal is great, your learning is profounde,
Then help our wantes, with that you doe abounde."

3 SCENE V." No trophy, sword, nor hatchment, o'er his bones.

Sir John Hawkins says, "not only the sword, but the helmet, gauntlet, spurs, and tabard (i e., a coat whereon the armorial ensigns were anciently depicted, from whence the term coat of armour) are hung over the grave of every kuight. We subjoin a trophy of the period of Elizabeth, placed o'er the tomb of the Lennard family in WestWickham Church, Kent.

2 SCENE V.-" Like the kind, life-rend'ring
pelican."

In architectural ornaments, or monumental sculptures, and in old books of fables and emblems, the pelican is always represented as an eagle. As an ornament in the ecclesiastical structures of the middle ages, it is of frequent occurence, and is generally found as a pendant from the point in which the groinings of the roof intersect each other, or as a principal decoration in the carved seats of stalls. Of the former, there is a beautiful example in the church at Harfleur; and of the latter, there are several very good ones in St. Mary's College, Winchester. Amongst old books of emblems there is one on which Shakspere himself might have looked, containing the subjoined representation. It is entitled, 'A Choice of Emblemes and other Devices, by Geffery Whitney, 1586.' Beneath the ent are the following lines:

154

[Trophy.]

1 Clo. Is she to be buried in christian burial, that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

2 Clo. I tell thee, she is; and therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath sate on her, and finds it a christian burial.

1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

2 Clo. Why, 't is found so.

1 Clo. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

2 Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver. 1 Clo. 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, will he, uill he, he goes; mark you that? but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not

• Straight-straightways-forthwith.

himself: argal, he, that is not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life.

2 Clo. But is this law?

1 Clo. Ay, marry is 't; crowner's-quest law. 2 Clo. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out of christian burial.

1 Clo. Why, there thou say'st: And the more pity, that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession.

2 Clo. Was he a gentleman ?2

1 Clo. He was the first that ever bore arms. 2 Clo. Why, he had none.

1 Clo. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the scripture? The scripture says, Adam digged; Could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself

a Even-christian-fellow-christian, equal christian The expression is used by Chaucer.

2 Clo. Go to

1 Clo. What is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter ?

2 Clo. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

1 Clo. 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 ill to say, the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again; come.

2 Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

1 Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.*

2 Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clown digs, and sings.

In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought, it was very sweet,

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove
O, methought, there was nothing meet.3

Ham. Hath this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?

hor. Custom hath made it in him a property Di casiness.

Ham. 'Tis c'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

1 Clo. But age with his stealing steps,
Hath caught b me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me intill the land,
As if I had never been such.

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; raight it not?

Hor. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Why, e'en so: and now my lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade: Here's fine revolution, if we had the trick to see 't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with them ?4 mine ache to think on 't. 1 Clo. A pick-axe, 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 a scull.

Ham. There's another! Why might not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the scence with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more? ha!

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord. Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins? Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calves'-skins too. Ham. They are sheep, and calves, that seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow ::-Whose grave's this, sir?

1 Clo. Mine, sir.

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

Ham. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in 't.

1 Clo. You lie out on 't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in 't, and yet it is mine.

Ham. Thou dost lie in 't, to be in 't, and say it is thine: 't is for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

1 Clo. "T is a quick lie, sir; 't will away again, from me to you.

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?

Quiddits-quiddities-subtleties.

b Quillets-quidlibet-(what you please)—a frivolous le tinction.

1 Clo. For no man, sir.

Ham. What woman then?

1 Clo. For none neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in 't?

1 Clo. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

Ham. 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?

1 Clo. Of all the days i' the year, I came to 't that day that our last king Hamlet o'ercame Fortinbras.

Ham. How long is that since?

1 Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: It was the very day that young Hamlet was born: he that was mad, and sent into England.

Ham. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

1 Clo. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

Ham. Why?

1 Clo. "T will not be seen in him; there the

men are as mad as he.

Hum. How came he mad?

1 Clo. Very strangely, they say.

Ham. How strangely?

1 Clo. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits. Ham. Upon what ground?

1 Clo. Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

Ham. How long will a man lie i' the earth ere Le rot ?

1 Clo. 'Faith, if he be not rotten before he die, (as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in,) he will last you some eight year, or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.

Ilam. Why he more than another?

1 Clo. Why, sir, his hide is so tanned 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 scull now this

A sea

a The card-"the seaman's card" of Macbeth. chart in Shakspere's time was called a card. But the drawing of the points of the compass is also called the card. Steevens and Malone differ as to whether a compass-card or a chart is here meant.

b Picked, is spruce, affected, smart; to pick being the Lame as to trim. Some, however, think that the word was Crived from picked, peaked boots, which were extravagantly long-and hence the association with the "toe of the peasant."

scull has lain in the earth three-and-twenty years.

Ham. Whose was it?

1 Clo. A whoreson mad fellow's it was; Whose do you think it was?

Ham. Nay, I know not

1 Clo. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same scull, sir; this same scull, sir, was Yorick's scull, the king's jester.

Ham. This ?

1 Clo. E'en that.

Ham. Let me see. Alas poor Yorick !--I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now how abhorred my imagination is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own jeering ? quite chapfallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. -Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

Hor. What 's that, my lord?

Ham. Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the carth?

Hor. E'en so.

Ham. And smelt so? puh!

Hor. E'en so, my lord.

[Throws down the scull.

Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

Hor. 'T were to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Ham. No. faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it. As thus; Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make 'oam: And why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel ?

5

Imperial Cæsar, dead, and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:

So the folio. The quartos read, "Here's a scull now hath lyen you i' the earth," &c.

The repetition does not occur in the quartos.

c Let me see, is not in the quartos. It supersedes the stage direction of "takes the scull." d So the folio. The reading of the quarto (B) is, "and bow abhorred in my imagination it is." Abhorred is used in the sense of disgusted.

Jeering, in the folio; in the quartos, grinning. 1 Imperial, in the folio; in the quartos, imperious.