HAMLET: I will tell you why, so shall my anticipation
     prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the King
     and Queen moult no feather. I have of late -- but where-
     fore I know not -- lost all my mirth, forgone all custom
     of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my
     disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to
     me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy,
     the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament,
     this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it
     appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent
     congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a
     man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in
     form and moving, how express and admirable; in
     action, how like an angel; in apprehension, how like a
     god! the beauty of the world; the paragon of animals;
     and yet to me what is this quintessence of dust? Man
     delights not me -- nor women neither, though by your
     smiling you seem to say so.

From Shakespeare's HAMLET Act 5, Scene 1

(In Grave Yard)

HAMLET

What man dost thou dig it for?

 

CLOWN

For no man, sir.

 

HAMLET

What woman, then?

 

CLOWN

For none, neither.

 

HAMLET

Who is to be buried in't?

 

CLOWN

One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

 

HAMLET

How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the

card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord,

Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of

it; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the

peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he

gaffs his kibe. How long hast thou been a

grave-maker?

 

CLOWN

Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day

that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

 

HAMLET

How long is that since?

 

CLOWN

Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it

was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that

is mad, and sent into England.

 

HAMLET

Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

 

CLOWN

Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits

there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

 

HAMLET

Why?

 

CLOWN

'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men

are as mad as he.

 

HAMLET

How came he mad?

 

CLOWN

Very strangely, they say.

 

HAMLET

How strangely?

 

CLOWN

Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

 

HAMLET

Upon what ground?

 

CLOWN

Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man

and boy, thirty years.

 

HAMLET

How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?

 

CLOWN

I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die--as we

have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce

hold the laying in--he will last you some eight year

or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.

 

HAMLET

Why he more than another?

 

CLOWN

Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that

he will keep out water a great while; and your water

is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.

Here's a skull now; this skull has 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' poured 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 rims at

it. Here hung 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 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. Prithee, 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!

Puts down the skull

HORATIO

E'en so, my lord.

 

HAMLET

To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may

not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,

till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

HORATIO

'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

 

HAMLET

No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with

modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as

thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,

Alexander returneth into 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?

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd 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 to expel the winter flaw!

Compare the preceding quotation from Hamlet to Masaccio's Tribute Money with Donors c1428. Both deal with similar iconography concerning the grave and human remains. How is the message similar or different between the two?