s, griefstricken. Act V, Scene I - While they are digging a grave for a gentlewoman, the sexton and his helper argue about whether or not she should have Christian burial since she drowned herself. Hamlet and Horatio approach, unnoticed, as the gravedigger tosses out a skull he has just uncovered. Hamlet speculates 'that it may have been the skull of someone who held an important position. Now its owner is no more, and the skull is tossed rudely aside. When Hamlet asks the sexton whose grave he is preparing, the man does not give him a straight answer, but does identify the skull as Yorick's. Yorick was the court jester whom Hamlet, as a child, knew and loved. Now only his bones remain. Hamlet generalizes to Horatio that thus the greatest and the least eventually return to dust and obscurity. Hamlet and Horatio see a funeral procession approaching. In it are the king, the queen, and members of the court. Out of sight of the mourners, Hamlet and Horatio watch. Hamlet recognizes Laertes and soon realizes it is Ophelia's funeral. When Laertes, overcome with grief, leaps into the grave. Hamlet comes forward and leaps in too. Laertes attacks Hamlet who defends himself, Hamlet assumes that Laertes attacked because he was determined to show his unsurpassed grief for his sister. Hamlet then says that his love for Ophelia was greater than any brother's. Gertrude and Claudius beg Laertes to restrain himself since Hamlet is obviously mad. Act V, Scene II - Hamlet describes to Horatio how, when he was aboard ship, he stole the packet of letters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were delivering to the king of England. Hamlet read them and discovered that Claudius was asking the king to have him beheaded. He then substituted some letters he wrote himself, asking that the bearers (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) be put to death immediately. Next day, the sea fight occurred, and he returned to Denmark with the pirates. Horatio agrees with him that he must tak...
