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Hamlet, Act 5 , scene 1. Hamlet and Horatio are in a churchyard with two gravediggers. Hamlet holds a skull, that of Yorick, a king's jester, and says, "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. Prithee, Horatio, tell

me one thing." A common misquotation of the famous line, "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio," is "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, well."

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βˆ™ 15y ago
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βˆ™ 12y ago

It's from Act 5 of Hamlet. "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 rises at it."

Hamlet is looking at the skull of a man he knew as a child, Yorick the jester, who has been dead for 23 years. Hamlet still remembers him as a very funny and imaginative person who gave him piggyback rides. Yet there is nothing left of him except a stinking bone.

Please note that "Alas, poor Yorick!" is one sentence in which Hamlet expresses his pity for the condition his erstwhile friend is now in. "I knew him Horatio begins the next sentence and it is not "I knew him well" or "You knew him Horatio".

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βˆ™ 12y ago

It's from Hamlet. That is the famous scene in which Hamlet holds the skull of "poor Yorick" and goes on about life and mortality.

The line is actually

"Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy" (V, i, 176).

Hamlet is a play in which the "clown" is a grave digger and the jesters of old are dead.

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βˆ™ 13y ago

He is holding Yorick's skull, hence the speech

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Q: What play is the phrase Alas poor yorick I knew him Horatio come from?
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