"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?"

--Hamlet in Shakespeare's Hamlet

A prop that Hamlet talks about and to. Appearantly once quite a fellow to be around, but now reduced to just a dirty skull.