Act V

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

Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

’Tis e’en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

But age, with his stealing steps,

Hath claw’d me in his clutch,

And hath shipped me intil the land,

As if I had never been such.

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! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o’er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

It might, my lord.

Or of a courtier; which could say “Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?” This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one’s horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

Ay, my lord.