“
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio — a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
HamletAct V, Scene 1
5
Act 5, Scene 1
Catastrophe
Hamlet has returned from his aborted voyage to England (having escaped Claudius’s death plot). In the graveyard outside Elsinore, a gravedigger unearths a skull. It belongs to Yorick, the king’s jester who carried young Hamlet on his back. Confronting the physical reality of death, Hamlet traces the path from Alexander the Great to a bunghole.
Why This Matters
The iconic image of Hamlet holding a skull. A meditation on death’s levelling power — the jester who made him laugh is now dust.
mortalitymemorymemento mori
Hamlet Contemplating Yorick's Skull
Eugène Delacroix, 1828 · Public Domain