William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

ACT V. 1. Scene I. A churchyard. (continued)

Ham.
How long is that since?

1 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.

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

1 Clown.
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 Clown.
'Twill not he seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

Ham.
How came he mad?

1 Clown.
Very strangely, they say.

Ham.
How strangely?

1 Clown.
Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

Ham.
Upon what ground?

1 Clown.
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 he rot?

1 Clown.
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.

Ham.
Why he more than another?

1 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.

Ham.
Whose was it?

1 Clown.
A whoreson, mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?