off._[2]

_Clo_. Cudgell thy braines no more about it; for
your dull Asse will not mend his pace with beating,
and when you are ask't this question next, say
a Graue-maker: the Houses that he makes, lasts
[Sidenote: houses hee makes]
till Doomesday: go, get thee to _Yaughan_,[3] fetch
[Sidenote: thee in, and fetch mee a soope of]
me a stoupe of Liquor.

_Sings._[4]

_In youth when I did loue, did loue_, [Sidenote: _Song._]
_me thought it was very sweete:
To contract O the time for a my behoue,
O me thought there was nothing meete[5]_
[Sidenote: there a was nothing a meet.]

[Sidenote: _Enter Hamlet & Horatio_]

_Ham_. Ha's this fellow no feeling of his businesse,
[Sidenote: busines? a sings in graue-making.]
that he sings at Graue-making?[6]

_Hor_. Custome hath made it in him a property[7]
of easinesse.

_Ham_. 'Tis ee'n so; the hand of little Imployment
hath the daintier sense.

_Clowne sings._[8]

_But Age with his stealing steps_ [Sidenote _Clow. Song._]
_hath caught me in his clutch_: [Sidenote: hath clawed me]

[Footnote 1: 'unyoke your team'--as having earned his rest.]

[Footnote 2: _Not in Quarto._]

[Footnote 3: Whether this is the name of a place, or the name of an
innkeeper, or is merely an inexplicable corruption--some take it for a
stage-direction to yawn--I cannot tell. See _Q._ reading.

It is said to have been discovered that a foreigner named Johan sold ale
next door to the Globe.]

[Footnote 4: _Not in Quarto._]

[Footnote 5: A song ascribed to Lord Vaux is in this and the following
stanzas made nonsense of.]

[Footnote 6: Note Hamlet's mood throughout what follows. He has entered
the shadow of death.]

[Footnote 7: _Property_ is what specially belongs to the individual;
here it is his _peculiar work_, or _personal calling_: 'custom has made
it with him an easy duty.']

[Footnote 8: _Not in Quarto._]

[Page 230]

_And hath shipped me intill the Land_, [Sidenote: into]
_as if I had neuer beene such_.

_Ham_. That Scull had a tongue in it, and could
sing once: how the knaue iowles it to th' grownd, [Sidenote: the]
as if it were _Caines_ Iaw-bone, that did the first [Sidenote: twere]
murther: It might be the Pate of a Polititian which