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

_1st 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.

_2nd Clo._ Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a
carpenter?

_1st Clo._ Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.[14]

_2nd Clo._ Marry, now I can tell.

_1st Clo._ To't.

_2nd Clo._ Mass, I cannot tell.

_1st Clo._ Cudgel thy brains no more about it,[15] for your dull ass
will not mend his pace with beating; and, when you are asked this
question next, say, a grave-maker, the houses that he makes, last
till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a stoup of
liquor.[16]

[_Exit_ 2nd Clown, L.H.U.E.]

_Enter_ HAMLET _and_ HORATIO (L.H.U.E.)

First Clown _digs and sings._

_In youth, when I did love, did love_,[17]
_Methought, it was very sweet_,
_To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove_
_O, methought, there was nothing meet._

_Ham._

(_Behind the grave._)

Has this fellow no feeling of his business, he sings at grave-making?

_Hor._

(_On_ HAMLET'S R.)

Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

_Ham._ 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier
sense.[18]

_1st Clo._
_But age, with his stealing steps_,
_Hath clawed me in his clutch_,
_And hath shipped me into the land_,
_As if I had never been such._

[_Throws up a skull._]

_Ham._ That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: How the
knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did
the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this
ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent Heaven, might it not?

_Hor._ It might, my lord.

[_Gravedigger throws up bones._]

_Ham._ Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at
loggats with them?[19] mine ache to think on't.

_1st Clo._

[_Sings._]

_A pick-axe and a spade, a spade_,
_For and a shrouding sheet:_[20]
_O, a pit of clay for to be made_
_For such a guest is meet._

[_Throws up a skull._

_Ham._ There's another: Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?
Where be his quiddits now, his quillets,[21] his cases, his tenures,
and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him
about the