Remember that scene from Hamlet, the "comic relief" with the gravediggers talking about who builds the best house?
What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright or the carpenter?
The gallows maker...for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.
But then comes the final answer when one gravedigger says to the other that the gravedigger builds the best house because it lasts til Doomsday.
Hamlet and Horatio happen upon the scene.Hamlet takes the skull of Yorick, the court jester, and wonders aloud where all the merriment has gone. He comments that Alexander the Great and Caesar both died, decayed, became dust and, perhaps, plaster in the wall.
What a downer Hamlet is.
Frankly, I like knowing that the dust of Alexander and Caesar covers my walls and keeps winter away. I feel badly when the plaster crumbles forcing me to sweep them up and toss them in the trash. I whisper good-bye to them.
Good-bye, Alexander, with your turquoise chips of paint. Good-bye, Caesar, with pieces of pink and green wall paper stuck to your ribs. . . . Parting is such sweet sorrow. . . . Bless you. . . . .
There are worse fates than becoming plaster.
Sir Richard Burton as Hamlet
