212 ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS

The Old Man Broken

.- Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me,
IV. That the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolseyj
Was dead ?
Griffith ' Well, the voice goes, madam :
For after the stout Earl Northumberland
Arrested him at York, and brought him forward,
As a man sorely tainted, to his answer,
He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill
He could not sit his mule.
Katharine : Alas, poor man 1
Griffith : At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester,
Lodged in the abbey ; where the reverend abbot,
With all his covent, honourably received him ;
To whom he gave these words, O, father dbbots
An old man, broken with the storms of State,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye ;
Give him a little earth for charity !
So went to bed ; where eagerly his sickness
Pursued him still : and, three nights after this,
About the hour of eight, which he himself
Foretold should be his last, full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.
Katharine : So may he rest ; his faults lie gently on him !
Shakespeare's Henry the Eighth
A Riddle from Hamlet
•THIRST GRAVEDIGG&K: Come, my spade. There is no ancient
JT gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers : they hold
up Adam's profession. What is he that builds stronger than either
the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter ?
Second Gravedigger : The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives
a thousand tenants.
First Gravedigger : I like thy wit well, in good faith : 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 the church ;
argal, the gallows may do well to thee. Cudgel thy brains no more
about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating ; and
when you are asked this question next, say a grave-maker : the houses
that he makes last till Doomsday.
From the scene at Ophelia's grave