Page 349 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET
How ‘strangely’?

GRAVE.
Faith, e’en with losing his wits.

HAMLET
Upon what ground? [155]

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

HAMLET
How long will a man he i’th’earth ere lie rot?

GRAVE.
Faith, if a be not rotten before a die − as we have many pocky corses

nowadays that will scarce [160] hold the laying in − a will last you some
eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.

HAMLET
Why he more than another?

GRAVE.
Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade that a will keep out water a
great while, and your [165] water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead

body. Here’s a skull now hath lien you i’th’ earth three and twenty years.

HAMLET
Whose was it?

GRAVE.
A whoreson mad fellow’s it was. Whose do [170] you think it was?

HAMLET