Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?
Act V, Scene 1 · Hamlet
Context
Hamlet imagines a skull might have belonged to a lawyer, and mocks the legal terminology and clever arguments that are now useless to its former owner.
Analysis
The list of legal jargon—'quiddits,' 'quillets,' 'cases,' 'tenures,' 'tricks'—piles up with almost excessive thoroughness, the string of near-synonyms mimicking the professional vocabulary lawyers use to intimidate and impress. 'Quiddits' and 'quillets' are both terms for subtle distinctions, making the repetition itself enact the redundancy Hamlet is mocking. The anaphoric 'his' hammers home possession—these were *his* tools, *his* expertise—but the question 'Where be' makes their absence absolute; the lawyer's professional identity has vanished completely, leaving only a skull that can't argue back.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Hamlet targets professions built on language and abstraction—lawyers, politicians, courtiers—as if death particularly humiliates those who lived by words. This quote's piling-up of legal terms shows Hamlet almost enjoying the lawyer's loss of verbal power.