HAMLET, ⌜taking the skull⌝ 190⟨Let me see.⟩ Alas, poor
Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his
back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in
my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung
195 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 grinning? Quite chapfallen? Now get you to my
200 lady’s ⟨chamber,⟩ and tell her, let her paint an inch
thick, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh
at that.—Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.
HORATIO What’s that, my lord?
HAMLET Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this
205 fashion i’ th’ earth?
HORATIO E’en so.
HAMLET And smelt so? Pah!⌜He puts the skull down.⌝
HORATIO E’en so, my lord.
HAMLET To what base uses we may return, Horatio!
210 Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of
Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?
HORATIO ’Twere to consider too curiously to consider
so.
HAMLET No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither,
215 with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it, ⟨as
thus:⟩ Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander
returneth to dust; the dust is earth; of earth
we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he
was converted might they not stop a beer barrel?
220 Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth which kept the world in awe
Should patch a wall t’ expel the ⟨winter’s⟩ flaw!