A/N: new chappie!


Chapter 12: The Funeral of Ophelio

"Is he to be buried in Christian burial when he willfully seeks his own salvation?" the sailor asked his friend, digging the grave for Ophelio on the shore of an island in the dead of night.

"I tell thee he is," the second sailor nodded, sitting cross-legged in the sand drinking from the bottle of rum in his hand. He took a draught before adding, "Therefore make his grave straight. The crowner hath sat on him and finds it Christian burial."

"How can that be?" the gravedigger questioned frowning in wonder at his friend who gave a hiccup from his drink. "Unless he drowned himself in his own defense?"

"Why…'tis found so," the sailor drawled with a shrug.

"It must be se offendendo, it cannot be else," the gravedigger argued thoughtfully, pausing in his digging. "For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act, and an act hath three branches—it is to act, to do, to perform. Argal, he drowned himself wittingly."

"Nay," the sailor groaned in annoyance. "But hear you, goddamn delver—"

"Give me leave," the gravedigger cut in, raising a hand to silence his friend before using his hands to geature as he resumed, "Here stands the man, good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is – will he, nill he – he goes, mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life."

"But is this law?" the drunken sailor wondered.

"Ay, marry, is't…crowner's 'quest law," the gravedigger nodded, resuming his work.

"Will you ha' the truth on it?" the Sailor asked. "If this had not been a gentleman, he should have been buried out o' Christian burial."

"Why, there thou sayst," the gravedigger laughed. "And the more the pity that great folk should have count'nance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even-Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers. They hold up Adam's profession."

"Was he a gentleman?"

"He was the first that ever bore arms."

"Why, he had none."

"What, art a heathen?" the gravedigger questioned with an incredulous frown at the drunk sailor, pausing in his work again. "How dost thou understand the scripture? The scripture says Adam digged. Could he dig without arm? I'll put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself—"

"Go to!" the sailor groaned in exasperation.

"What is he that builds stronger than either mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?" the gravedigger questioned anyway.

"The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants," the sailor shot back before taking another swig of rum and the gravedigger laughed heartily.

"I like thy wit well, in good faith," he still laughed. "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 a church. Argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To 't again, come."

"'Who builds stronger than a mason, a ship-wright or a carpenter?'" the sailor wondered with a frown.

"Ay," the gravedigger nodded. "Tell me that, and unyoke."

"Marry, now I can tell," the sailor replied, seemingly enthusiastic.

"To 't!"

"I cannot tell," the sailor blurted, sardonically.

"Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating," the gravedigger retorted, resuming his work again. "And, when you are asked this question next say, 'a grave-maker.' The houses he makes lasts till Doomsday. Go, get thee in, and fetch me a stoup of liquor."

The sailor frowned and looked to his own rum bottle, thinking he might just give it up to the gravedigger. However, when he turned it upside-down only a drop rolled from the opening and he shrugged, resigned to being a go-for before standing and heading toward the Denmark beached on the shore of the island. Neither one noticed Hamletta and Horatio trudging through the brush as the gravedigger began digging again, singing to himself.

In youth when I did love, did love, methought it was very sweet
To contract—O—the time for a—my behove
O, methought there—a—was nothing—a—meet.

"Has this fellow no feeling of his business?" Hamletta wondered incredulously as she and Horatio remained in the brush, watching him. "He sings in grave-making."

"Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness," Horatio guessed.

"'Tis e'en so," Hamletta muttered, crossing her arm in disapproval. "The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense."

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

The pair watched as the gravedigger lifted a skull from his feet and tossed it outside the grave.

"That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once," Hamletta observed. "How the knave jowls it to the ground as if 'twere Cain's jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now o'erreaches, one that would circumvent God, might it not?"

"Ay, my lady," Horatio simply nodded.

"Why, e'en so," she muttered, kicking at some brush at her feet before resuming, "And now my Lady Worm's chapless and knocked about the mazard with a sexton's spade. Here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to see 't. Did these bones coat no more the breeding but to play at loggets with them? Mine ache to think on 't."

A pickax and a spade, a spade
For and a shrouding sheet
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet

"There's another," Hamletta announced as the gravedigger tossed another skull up from the grave and she tapped Horatio's arm, asking, "Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillities, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he suffer this mad knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel and will not tell him of his action of battery?"

She couldn't help but chuckle before resuming, "This fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with his statues, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will lie in this box, and must th' inheritor himself have no more, ha?"

"Not a jot more, my lady," Horatio agreed.

"Is not parchment made of skins?"

"Ay, my lady, and of calves' skins too."

"They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that," Hamletta muttered, staring at the gravedigger as he worked then tapped Horatio's arm again, saying, "I will speak to this fellow."

Horatio turned wide eyes to her as she headed out of the brush and toward the gravedigger, but sighed in resignation and followed her, his hand on his sword in case anyone should recognize her and attack.

"Whose grave is this, sirrah?" Hamletta questioned the gravedigger, whose head shot up from his work with wide eyes before he relaxed as she sat herself in the sand, Horatio standing behind her, protectively.

"Mine, ma'am," he replied before resuming his digging and singing.

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet

"I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in 't," Hamletta smirked, playing along.

"You lie out on 't, ma'am, and therefore 'tis not yours," the gravedigger replied, still working. "For my part, I do not lie in 't, yet it is mine."

"Thou dost lie in 't, to be in 't and say it is thine," Hamletta retorted. "'Tis for the dead, not for the quick…therefore thou liest."

"'Tis a quick lie, ma'am. 'Twill away again from me to you."

"What man dost thou dig it for?" Hamletta laughed at his words.

"For no man, ma'am."

"What woman then?"

"For none, neither."

"Who is to be buried in 't?"

"One that was a man, ma'am, but, rest his soul, he's dead."

"How absolute the knave is!" Hamletta blurted toward Horatio, craning her neck back to see him as he frowned down at her. "We must speak by the card or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have took note of it: the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of a courtier, he galls his kibe!"

Horatio opened his mouth to reply but she looked away to ask the gravedigger, "How long hast thou been grave-maker?"

"Of all the days i' th' year, I came to 't that day that our last King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras," the gravedigger replied, still working.

Hamletta frowned, trying to calculate it in her head how long ago that had been, but the thought of her father made her mind go blank, so she asked in a soft voice, "How long is that since?"

"Cannot you tell that?" the gravedigger wondered with a frown, pausing to look up at her as she shot her wide, turquoise blue eyes at him. "Every fool can tell that. It was that very day that young Hamletta was born—she that is mad, and sent onto the England."

Horatio looked to the top of Hamletta's had to watch her nod, calmly and ask through a smirk, "Ay, marry, why was she sent onto the England?"

"Why, because she was mad," the gravedigger laughed. "She shall recover her wits there. Or if she do not, 'tis no great matter there."

"Why?" she frowned in wonder.

"'Twill not be seen in her there," he shrugged. "There the men are as mad as she."

"How came she mad?" she asked, wondering what rumors were being spread around the ships about her.

"Very strangely, they say," the gravedigger replied, resuming his work.

"How 'strangely'?"

"Faith e'en with losing his wits."

"Upon what ground?"

"Why there on the Denmark," the gravedigger laughed again. "I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years."

"How long will a man lie i' th' Earth ere he rot?" Hamletta wondered, vaguely interested.

"Faith if he be not rotten before he die…as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in…he will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year."

"Why he more than another?" she asked.

"Why, ma'am,his hide is tanned with his trade that he will keep out water a great while," he explained. "And your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body." He looked down at his feet and lifted the skull at his feet with a smile and showed it off to her, saying, "Here's a skull now hath lien you i' th' Earth three-and-twenty years."

"Whose was it?"

"A whoreson mad fellow's it was. Whose do you think it was?"

Hamletta frowned in thought as she examined the skull, not taking it from the gravedigger as he held it toward her, but she shook her head replying, "Nay, I know not."

"A pestilence on him for a mad rogue!" the grave digger laughed, looking at the skull's huge, empty eye-sockets. "He poured his flagon of Rhenish pn my head once. This same skull, ma'am, was, ma'am, Yorick's skull, the King's first mate."

Hamletta's eyes widened, her jaw dropping as she felt tears prick her eyes as the name registered in her memory.

"This?" she breathed, nostalgia rolling over her like a wave onto the shore.

"E'en that," he nodded.

"L-Let me see?" she whispered, holding her hands out and he set the skull in her hands as she reverently took it, pulling it close to examine it again as Horatio sat next to her. "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio…a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises 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 chapfallen."

She couldn't help but giggle before saying, "Now get you to my lord's chamber, and tell him, let him paint an inch thick, so this favor he must come. Make him laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing."

"What's that, my lady?" he wondered, watching her stare at the skull, even as she spoke to him.

"Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' th' Earth?"

"E'en so," he nodded.

"And smelt so?" she grinned, shoving the skull into his face and he cringed away at the smell as she laughed and set the skull down again.

"E'en so, my lady," he couldn't help but laugh as the gravedigger continued his work and Hamletta sighed.

"To what base uses we may return, Horatio," she mused. "Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?"

"'Twere to consider too curiously to consider so," Horatio muttered, picking at the sand on his boots.

"No, faith, not a jot," she scoffed, staring at Yorick's skull. "But to follow him thither, with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it, as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to 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 turned to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away." She sighed again and rested her face in her hands to rub her eyes, adding, "O, that that earth which kept the world in awe should patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw."

Horatio said nothing before something caught his gaze past the grave. He tapped Hamletta's arm to get her attention and when she looked in the direction he pointed her eyes shot wide at the sight of Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, a priest and a few other sailors carrying the body for the grave heading toward them.

"Here come the King, the Queen, the courtiers," she breathed in realization then frowned in wonder at the covered body as she stood, Horatio standing next to her. "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." She pulled on Horatio's sleeve as she headed back toward the thick brush behind them, saying, "Couch we awhile and mark."

They both hurried back into the brush and hid themselves to watch the group approach the grave, the gravedigger climbing out and stepping aside with his shovel.

"What ceremony else?" Laertes asked the priest, his voice cracking only slightly, Hamletta noticed.

"That is Laertes, a very noble youth," Hamletta told Horatio, but he said nothing as she urged, "Mark."

"What ceremony else?!" Laertes snapped impatiently at the priest.

"His obsequies have been as far enlarged as we have warranty," the priest replied, calmly. "His death was doubtful and, but that great command o'ersways the order he should in ground unsanctified been lodged till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on him. yet here he is allowed his virgin crants, and bringing home of bell and burial."

"Must there be no more done?" Laertes wondered.

"No more be done," the priest replied. "We should profane the service of the dead to sing a requiem and such rest to him as to peace-parted souls."

"Lay him i' th' earth," Laertes ordered the sailors. "And from his fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest, a ministering angel shall my brother be when thou liest howling."

"What…" Hamletta breathed, gripping Horatio's sleeve in shock as she now couldn't tear her eyes away from the body being lowered into the grave. "The…The fair Ophelio?!"

"Sweets to the sweet," Gertrude announced, scattering flowers over the grave as she choked out her words. "I hoped thou shouldest have been my Hamletta's husband. I thought thy bed to have decked, sweet fellow, and not have strewed thy grave."

Hamletta felt tears spring to her eyes and roll unbidden down her cheeks at her mother's words and the sadness of losing Ophelio.

"O, treble woe fall ten times treble on that cursed head whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense deprived thee of!" Laertes shouted at Gertrude, making Hamletta frown and anger spark in her at his words and who they were directed to. She managed to keep herself from charging him as the gravedigger was about to shovel the sand back over Ophelio's body. "Hold off the earth awhile, till I have caught him once more in mine arms."

Leartes jumped into the grave, and Horatio caught Hamletta's arm to keep her from running out of the brush when she shot to her feet. They were both still hidden as Laertes lifted Ophelio's limp body in his arms and looked to the gravedigger.

"Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, till of this flat mountain you have made t' o'ertop old Pelion or the skyish head of blue Olympus!" Laertes ordered the gravedigger and Hamletta had had enough.

She shoved away from Horatio's grip, marching out of the brush and he followed as she snarled, "What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis, whose phrase of sorrow conjures the wandering stars and makes them stand like wonder-wounded hearers?! This is I, Hamletta the Pirate!"

"The devil take thy soul!" Laertes growled, climbing from the grave.

"Thou prayest not well!" Hamletta shot back and Laertes launched himself from the grave to tackle her to the ground.

The surrounding group watched as Laertes threw punches at Hamletta's head, only to hit the sand as she dodged them and she jammed her knee into his stomach, making him grunt in pain before quickly recovering as she shoved him off of her to shoot to her feet. He scrambled to stand as well and threw his arms around her shoulders, one hand clamping around her throat in an attempt to choke her.

"I prithee…take thy finger from my throat," Hamletta choked out, his hand keeping the air from her lungs. "For though I am not…splentitive and rash, yet have I in me something dangerous…which let thy wisdom fear. Hold…off…thy hand!"

"Pluck them asunder," Claudius ordered his sailors, casually and they sprang toward Lartes as Horatio tried to help Hamletta out of his grip.

"Hamletta! Hamletta!" Gertrude called and tried to run toward the group to help her but Claudius grabbed her arm to pull her back, even as she struggled.

Laertes grip on Hamletta's neck loosened enough to let her turn and land a punch to his face, making him stumble into the arms of the sailors as Horatio gripped her arms to pull her back, pleading, "Good my lady, be quiet."

"Why?!" she snarled over her shoulder before looking to Laertes as he wiped the blood from his mouth. "I will fight with him upon this theme until my eyelids will no longer wag!"

"O my daughter, what theme?!" Gertrude cried, struggling to be free of Claudius' grip but he held her fast.

Hamletta stilled in Hortio's grip and he let her go so that she could step toward the grave and stare down at Ophelio's body, shuddering, "I loved Ophelio."

She turned a glare to Laertes and growled, "Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum. What wilt thou do for him?!"

"O, he is mad, Laertes," Claudius grumbled, finally letting Gertrude free.

"For love of God, forbear her!" she pleaded to Laertes.

"'Swounds, show me what thou't do!" Hamletta shouted at him, then mocked. "Woo't weep, woo't fight, woo't fast, woo't tear thyself, woo't drink up easel, eat a crocodile?! I'll do't!"

She glared at him as she marched toward him where he was still being held by Claudius' men.

"Dost thou come here to whine?" she growled. "To outface me with leaping in his grave? Be buried quick with him…and so will I!"

She ran toward the grave as if to jump into it as she threatened to, making everyone gasp and Laertes try to advance but she landed on the other side of the grave, spinning around to glare at him.

"And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw millions of acres on us, till our ground, singeing his pate against the burning zone, make Ossa like a wart!" she nearly screamed before looking down at Ophelio's body and feeling the tears return to her eyes as she knelt down at the edge of the grave, murmuring, "Nay, and thou'lt mouth…I'll rant as well as thou."

"This is mere madness," Gertrude told Laertes as she stepped toward him to catch his attention, distracting him as the sailors holding him released him. "And thus awhile the fit will work on her. Anon, as patient as the female dove when that her golden couplets are disclosed, his silence will sit drooping."

"Hear you, sir," Hamletta growled, making all eyes shoot to her as she stood and stepped around the grave to gently move her mother away and stand directly in front of him, staring him down. "What is the reason that you use me thus?"

She tried searching his eyes for the reason, but saw nothing. She was familiar with this expression from him. She knew she would get nothing from him. She sighed, bowing her head and Horatio placed a hand on her shoulder, making her glance to him before shrugging him away and looking back at Laertes.

"But it is…no matter," she muttered, sniffling as she marched around him and back toward the brush, waving at Horatio to follow her, throwing over her shoulder, "Let Hercules himself do what he may. The cat will mew, and dog will have his day!"

Everyone watched as Hamletta disappeared into the brush again, no one knowing where she was headed and Claudius stepped up next to Horatio.

"I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon her," he requested and Horatio nodded, quickly heading after Hamletta as Claudius stepped toward Laertes to murmur to him, Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech. We'll put the matter to the present push."

He turned to Gertrude and snapped, "Good Gertrude, set some watch over your daughter."

Gertrude gave him a glare but he only turned back to Laertes to continue, "This grave shall have a living monument. An hour of quiet shortly shall we see, till then in patience our proceeding be."


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