TEXT:
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!
But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.
Enter Priest, & c. in procession; the Corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES and Mourners following;
CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, their trains, & cetera.
The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life: 'twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile, and mark.
NOTES:
Julius Caesar
Shakespeare's play about the conspirators who assassinate Julius Caesar can be reasonably assumed to have been first performed in 1599. The likelihood is that it appeared just before Hamlet, and so the references to ancient Rome discussed in several episodes are hardly surprising since Rome was still on Shakespeare's mind. In Julius Caesar, Antony insists that Caesar’s body be shown to the public after the assassination, and he gives a highly strategic and effective eulogy, pointing out his wounds - the “holes” in his body.
Prose and Verse
For a good deal more information about prose and verse and how Shakespeare uses them, visit The Basics, a series of several episodes looking at the building blocks of how Shakespeare writes.