"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him... a fellow of infinite jest."

Get me to William Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London, England.  Take my picture(s) there and post here.

Wonders of the World Tag on a plastic skull.

     ‘Alas poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio’ spoken by Hamlet is one of the best known Hamlet quotes. In fact, it’s one of the most quoted lines in all of Shakespeare – probably the most iconic image connected with Shakespeare in our culture is that of Hamlet holding a human skull, dressed in black, with the caption, ‘Alas, poor Yorick.’

     Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims 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 chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that.

                                                    - Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1                            

     It is a commentary on the futility of life itself, as it always ends in this way. He reflects on the falseness of women, as he sees them, in that however much they may plaster their faces with makeup they will all end up like this skull, and they could learn a lesson from Yorick. This is a graphic image reflecting a moral state, echoing his exclamation regarding his mother’s betrayal of his father: ‘frailty, thy name is woman.’

     Hamlet reflects that even the greatest men, Caesar and Alexander, have come to this, returned to the earth and been transformed into clay. Stoppers for the bungholes in beer barrels are made of clay and perhaps those great men may now be stopping bungholes in beer barrels. That is the case for all of us.

     And so, ‘Alas poor Yorick’ is the framing of some very important reflections on life, death, corruption, relationships and social rank in the play, Hamlet.