Hamlet and the gravedigger

by Delacroix

Clown:    Here's a skull now; this skull hath lain in the earth three-and-twenty years.

Hamlet:  Whose was it?

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

Hamlet:  Nay, I know not.

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?

Clown:   E'en that.

Hamlet:   Let me see. [Takes the skull.]
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 in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss'd 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 chap-fallen?

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.

—Pr'ythee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

Horatio:  What's that, my lord?

Hamlet:  Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the earth?

Horatio:  E'en so.

Hamlet:  And smelt so? Pah!

[Throws down the skull.]