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Ophelia is being buried in a full Christian burial by two clowns. They debate whether it is possible for a person, who has drowned, can be anything but a suicide. The clowns joke together—a gallows-maker builds stronger than a mason, ship-maker or carpenter because his handiwork will last more than a thousand tenants. Another answer? A gravedigger because his house lasts forever. One sings merrily in the midst of this macabre task as Hamlet and Horatio appear. As the clowns dig up skulls, Hamlet conjectures on who they might be. They come upon the skull of the court jester, Yorick, someone who Hamlet knew well. Hamlet laments the fate of men. Even Alexander and Caesar will become like Yorick. Hamlet's reveries are interrupted by a royal procession, carrying with it the body of Ophelia. A priest comments that Ophelia's remains should probably be allowed to rest in a suicide's grave, but a royal order has overridden that possibility. Laertes takes offense at her inadequate burial, but the priests feel they have done enough, considering the nature of her death. Hamlet, overcome with grief, leaps into her grave only to be overcome by Laertes, who is trying to choke him to death. Attendants pull them apart and they leave the grave. He leaves, having, again, acted insane in the presence of Laertes and the royal couple. Claudius vows to act shortly. This is one of the great existential scenes in Shakespeare. The very real nature of life and death is tossed, almost casually, to the audience with the same playfulness as the clowns gaily toss out the skulls they have dug up out of the grave. Hamlet barely has time to comment on this to Horatio, lamenting on how death equalizes all men, when a procession carrying his Ophelia appears. Hamlet still seems to be feigning madness as he leaps into her grave, ultimately battling with her brother, Laertes, whose grief he pits against his own. Claudius watches all this, noting that Hamlet's moment will arrive soon.
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