A notable minor motif that is developed in this scene
is Hamlet’s obsession with the physicality of death. Though many
of his thoughts about death concern the spiritual consequences of
dying—for instance, torment in the afterlife—he is nearly as fascinated
by the physical decomposition of the body. This is nowhere more
evident than in his preoccupation with Yorick’s skull, when he envisions
physical features such as lips and skin that have decomposed from
the bone. Recall that Hamlet previously commented to Claudius that
Polonius’s body was at supper, because it was being eaten by worms
(IV.iii). He is also fascinated by the equalizing effect of death
and decomposition: great men and beggars both end as dust. In this
scene, he imagines dust from the decomposed corpse of Julius Caesar
being used to patch a wall; earlier, in Act IV, he noted, “A man
may fish with the worm that have eat of a king, and eat of the fish
that hath fed of that worm,” a metaphor by which he illustrates
“how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar” (IV.iii.26–31).
